Patricia Smith

Patricia Smith has been called “a testament to the power of words to change lives.” She is the author of seven books of poetry, including Incendiary Art (2017), winner of an NAACP Image Award and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award; Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah (2012), which won the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets; Blood Dazzler (2008), a chronicle of the human and environmental cost of Hurricane Katrina which was nominated for a National Book Award; and Teahouse of the Almighty, a 2005 National Poetry Series selection published by Coffee House Press. Smith collaborated with the photographer Michael Abramson on the book Gotta Go Gotta Flow: Life, Love, and Lust on Chicago’s South Side From the Seventies (2015). Her work has appeared in Poetry magazine, the Paris Review, the New York Times, TriQuarterly, Tin House, the Washington Post, and in both Best American Poetry and Best American Essays. Source

Sometimes

Sometimes he shoots into the mirror

and someone, wearing his face, falls.

A mother grieves, but no one hears her

prayer, collapse and caterwauls.

And someone wearing his face falls.

A mama screeches out his name

then prays, collapses. Caterwauls

are soundtrack as revenge take aim.

His mama screeches out his name,

but payback’s on the daddy’s mind.

The soundtrack, as revenge take aim,

morphs into dirge. There’s not much time,

But payback’s on the daddy’s mind.

He grabs a gun, he dies. His night

morphs into dirge, there’s not much time

to waste. His boys gon’ make it right.

They grab their guns. They die. This night

A mama grieves but no one hears her

waste away. Her boy-he gon’ make it, right?

Sometimes he shoots into the mirror.

Published:

None

Length:

Regular

Literary Movements:

Contemporary

Anthology Years:

2023

Themes:

Death & Loss

Family

Identity

Violence & War