Jordan E. Franklin
There’s a Light That Never Goes Out
After the Smiths
Beg me to sing of the bus and splintered light.
Your steering wheel sternum crashes, its circus
of plastic and bone you tease into fingers
seeking the river of my throat—just us
and this song, singing: let us not go home.
Our lifelines touch, conjoined in the Jordan.
They’ll remind you of a time when “Jordan”
was the only thing sleeping here, the light
when the name weeps out of you—a home
without venom. If palms were a circus,
could you tame me again? That veil of us
over your eyes, inked skulls under your fingers.
A ballad murders your father’s fingers
branched upon abused strings. Point to Jordan—
This new land of flesh crashes this path in us
crueler than waves into a cove’s mouth, light
twisting like sea beds, the toothless circus
bears my lungs become in their ribbed home.
We traipse dancehalls and streetlamps to your home.
Beside me, you are a siren, fingers
driving me to swollen tongue, mad circus
heart which traces hymns slowly to Jordan—
the heavy staccato with not a light
sound to be known. Loosen this spell for us.
Still your charm. See how your hexes numb us
as the night crashes here. Enchant me home
for I have lost its name. Into streetlight,
cracked eye of lyre, use your dulcet fingers
to part the strings of song. There is Jordan
there—I’m not sold on Canaan, that circus
fire lost before we were dreamt. The circus
tightrope you ask of me before there’s “us”
named in that book by your bedside, “Jordan”
marked in something close to “red” or to “home.”
You, the architect of rehearsed fingers
arched over my mouth, bring prayers to light:
I beg you, tell me there’s a light
somewhere. Can you comb it through your fingers
for me? Can you give me the name of “home?”
Baldur Dreams: the Lost Verses
Inspired by “God of War (2018)” by Santa Monica Studios
back to the days when
I wore twist braids
like a careless crown
and the other kids
dubbed them “dreads-
in-training” and “doo doo
braids.”
back to the days
when you taught
me to jab and hook.
You smiled—
all 32 doors to Valhalla
opened for me to see.
back to the days
when I shunned dresses,
nursed ugliness, and thought
I wasn’t pretty enough
to be a girl.
back to the days
when I could outrun teasing,
bullets, and my own head
on the school playground,
my polished shoes
sprouting wings
on Bedstuy asphalt.
back to the days when
loving you hurt
but I couldn’t feel it—
the pain subtle
like the temperature
in the room.
back to the days
when everything I wrote
rhymed until the meter
chipped like walls
under your hands.
back to the days
when you made me beg
for mistletoe
even when you knew
what it’d do.
back to the days
when the fool in me
believed I wouldn’t be
touched if I’m ugly
and let 300lbs separate
bones from skin.
back to the days
when 300lbs wasn’t enough
to keep that man
for entering the elevator
with me.
back to the days
when that man only touched
and ugliness—
that fool’s gold of a calf
I prayed upon
like the Valhalla I saw
in you—broke.
