Ask Where I've Been

Ask Where I’ve Been Jamaal May (bio) Let fingers roamthe busy anglesof my shoulders.Ask why skin driesin rime-white patches, crackslike a puddle stepped on. Askabout the scars that interruptblacktop—the keloid on my bicep,a fogged window. Ask how manydays passed before the eyebrow healedafter a metal spike was torn out,uprooted lamppost in a tornado.Ask about the tornadoof fists. The blows landed. If you canwatch it all—the spit and blood frozenagainst snow, you can probably tellI am the too-narrow road winding outof a crooked city built of laughter,asphalt, and abandon.Ask only if you can watch streetlights bow,bridges arc, and power lines sag,and still believe what matters mostis not where I bendbut where I am growing. [End Page 505] Jamaal May JAMAAL MAY is the author of Hum, his first book, which received the Beatrice Hawley Award from Alice James Books, the American Library Association’s Notable Book Award, and an NAACP Image Award nomination. His other honors include the Indiana Review Poetry Prize, the Stadler Fellowship, and the 2014-2016 Kenyon Review Fellowship. Jamaal’s poems appear in such publications as The New Republic, The Believer, Callaloo, Poetry, Ploughshares, Best American Poetry 2014, and NYTimes.com. From Detroit, he co-directs the Organic Weapon Arts Chapbook and Video Series with Tarfia Faizullah. Copyright © 2014 The Johns Hopkins University Press

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