INDIRECT LIGHT
MALACHI BLACK
i.m. James Scott Latona (1982-2017)
No taller than a mother’s
waist, we bubbled shoeless
through damp August
haze, squealing sweat-
soaked and grass-stained
into the vacillating
spray of rusted lawn sprinklers—
suspended in the echoes
of our names
above the stiffly crewcut
sod, our small backs arcing
upward and away
from each faded brick facade
in our unmanicured
apartment complex—
our bright sounds skipping
off the surface of the yard,
clapping in ricochet
against the mold-flecked
shutters and cracked paint
of single-parent
window frames—our vison
rippling with the asphalt
distance, blurred
like the watery inscriptions
of nearby dogwood branches
dipped in shade—
our street-scabbed bodies
briefly tinseled in the sun,
fathered by the light
we gathered and the light
we gave back to each other
one by one,
all of us lunging forward,
sliding faster through the mud—
Listen to "Bloodbuzz Ohio" by The National, selected to accompany Malachi's work, below:
MALACHI BLACK is the author of Storm Toward Morning (Copper Canyon Press, 2014), a finalist for the Poetry Society of America’s (PSA) Norma Farber First Book Award and a selection for the PSA’s New American Poets series. Black’s poems appear widely in journals and anthologies and have been recognized by a number of fellowships and awards. He is an associate professor of English and creative writing at the University of San Diego.