Valentines: Two poems by Nate Marshall

love poem ending with ‘How To Get Away With Murder’

those first few happy months
of an unhappy time we did
all the things that befit our station:
puzzles, petty arguments, workout plans,
cooking adventures where i failed 
at perfecting steak & you
made good ass muffins.

the joke we always make is that this time
is how we know we really like each other.
board games & walks too long for your liking
& planned out meals with a chart & takeout 
on Fridays.

hundreds of miles from all our people & afraid 
to be out the house. the first few weeks our colleagues
fashion homemade masks from bandanas & i say
no black man is walking up in a store looking like that
& coming out okay. the next few weeks its proven right &
our colleagues send us texts we don’t respond to in quiet unison
one leaves a plant on the porch as an apology (i guess for whiteness),
our favorite gift was a collection of weed candies & cookies. 
by that point we had stopped drinking almost entirely 
(which was always more my vice than yours). 

so now at night we nibble some indicaed-chocolate confections
& watch our favorite actress stalk a courtroom like a virus
across the landscape. we get high & watch an addict try to stay clean. 
we sink into the couch & watch a Black woman not murder & get away.

look to the stars, look at the sky at night, tell me that heaven ain’t Black

the poets are scammers, 
easy-way-out takers, 
makers of myths 
at the highest level. 

what a cheap trick to mention 
heaven & believe your brain 
can bend around the splendor. 

what a loser, 
what a user 
of hyperbole & game 
is what i think 
until i take the castor oil 
& squeeze the dripper 
so the tip spits at your temple 
& i run my forefinger
through row after holy row 
of you, impossibly black 
except where streaked with starry silver. 

the sound you make 
when soothed with a blessing at your braid. 
the poets undersold paradise. 

About Nate Marshall

Nate Marshall is the author of Finna and Wild Hundreds. He is an assistant professor in the creative writing program at the University of Wisconsin. Originally from the South Side of Chicago, he now lives in Madison, WI with his wife, the writer Alison C. Rollins, and their very cute daughter.