Yusef Komunyakaa (born 1947) won the Pulitzer for his book "Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems"
Facing It
My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn’t,
dammit: No tears.
I’m stone. I’m flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way — the stone lets me go.
I turn that way — I’m inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap’s white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman’s blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird’s
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet’s image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I’m a window.
He’s lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she’s brushing a boy’s hair.
Birds on a Powerline
Mama Mary’s counting them
Again. Eleven black. A single
Red one like a drop of blood
Against the sky. She’s convinced
They’ve been there two weeks.
I bring her another cup of coffee
& a Fig Newton. I sit here reading
Frances Harper at the enamel table
Where I ate teacakes as a boy,
My head clear of voices brought back.
The green smell of the low land returns,
Stealing the taste of nitrate.
The deep-winter eyes of the birds
Shine in summer light like agate,
As if they could love the heart
Out of any wild thing. I stop,
With my finger on a word, listening.
They’re on the powerline, a luminous
Message trailing a phantom
Goodyear blimp. I hear her say
Jesus, I promised you. Now
He’s home safe, I’m ready.
My traveling shoes on. My teeth
In. I got on clean underwear.
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Other Pulitzer finalists in 1994 were Brenda Hillman for her book Bright Existence and Allen Mandelbaum for his book The Metamorphoses of Ovid.
