To: All Poets From: Northeastern North Carolina

It’s just getting hot,
dogwoods showering our shoulders with flowers.

I saw dead baby birds on a trail
so I know new life has arrived

lost in the survival of pine and ash. I’ll say it plainly—
we need you down here.

Yesterday, my uncle put a nail through his thumb
working for the same white man he’s worked for since sixth grade.

Last night his blood fell on the bathroom floor and made a star
he couldn’t follow.

He needs to hear your poems.

My Grandmother’s body lives
under an ash tree
on an old church ground,
her spirit can be seen making
a maple tree’s shadow jealous.

The church’s bricks absorb
the choir’s songs, they flake Holy Ghost,
If Trouble Don’t Come Today.

I visit, fall on my knees,
ask her how she doing?
How long is her hair now?

Does she still like it braided
in front? Still like having
her scalp scratched?
What y’all doing
in heaven today?

She’d tell my mama

Tyree Daye

2017

Same Oaks, Same Year

My cousin kept me and his little brother
saved me from our uncle’s

pit bull, then spent seven years
in prison for his set.

Every other word
he said was
blood.

Uncle Nuggie showed us
how to make a BB rattle
inside a squirrel.

Two small holes,
enter and exit.

All summer I wondered
what leaves the body?

Tyree Daye

2017

Gin River

If the Neuse River was gin
we would’ve drunk to its bottom,

its two-million-year-old currents,
shad, sunfish, redhorse, yellow lance,

All the blood from the Tuscarora War.

We would have drunk it all,
aunts and uncles would have led us in Big Bill Broonzy’s
“When I Been Drinking,”

until everything inside us began to dance
and we all joined in,

silt around our ankles,
everyone kicking sand.

Tyree Daye

2017

Poems

To: All Poets From: Northeastern North Carolina

More by this poet

Dirt Cakes

Same Oaks, Same Year

Gin River

Poems

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To: All Poets From: Northeastern North Carolina

More by this poet

Dirt Cakes

Same Oaks, Same Year

Gin River

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