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‘N’em

By Jericho Brown

They said to say goodnight
And not goodbye, unplugged
The TV when it rained. They hid
Money in mattresses
So to sleep on decisions.
Some of their children
Were not their children. Some
Of their parents had no birthdates.
They could sweat a cold out
Of you. They'd wake without
An alarm telling them to.
Even the short ones reached
Certain shelves. Even the skinny
Cooked animals too quick
To get caught. And I don't care
How ugly one of them arrived,
That one got married
To somebody fine. They fed
Families with change and wiped
Their kitchens clean.
Then another century came.
People like me forgot their names.
Added: Wednesday, July 9, 2014  /  Used with permission.
Jericho Brown

Jericho Brown is the recipient of a Whiting Writers Award and of fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and the National Endowment for the Arts.  His poems have appeared in The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Paris Review, Poetry magazine, TIME magazine, and The Best American Poetry anthology. His first book, Please (New Issues, 2008), won the American Book Award.  His second book, The New Testament (Copper Canyon, 2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.  He serves as poetry editor for The Believer.  He is an associate professor of English and Creative Writing and the Director of the Creative Writing Program at Emory University in Atlanta.

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