Improv Entries Week 8

Entry 1: From Miscegnation by Natasha Trethewey
"I know more than Joe Christmas did. Natasha is a Russian name-/ though I'm not; it means Christmas child, even in Mississippi."

M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i, letter by letter shamed and slurred into a microphone
knowing he had one too many one-twos, and it's too bad he didn't have some paper
or a pen or one of those memories that can see stuff, not just know it, but I'm not
to blame. I look down at my shoes R on one L on the other, in case you forget
my dad huffed a stretch back upward, my embarrassment like a beached whale in our
living room this morning but i remember every word he tells me, told me what he wanted
before he dies, already been alive too long, old enough to remember everything
i never got to see, see, that kid, he doesn't have this dad with the songs, the jokes
that help you remember how to spell state names or place mats with president faces,
this guy with a blessing they call bipolar he taught us girls
everything about all the things we'll never need to know. as that kid sinks
into himself i want to let him know what i know: my dad said when i was six
that if you can't spell elvis presley,
you'll never need to know anything about mississippi.

Entry 2: from Natasha Trethewey's Photograph: Ice Storm, 1971
"Why the rough edge of beauty? Why/ the tired face of a woman, suffering/ made luminous by the camera's eye?"

The edge of beauty is located at the corner of 16
and a panic attack, most beautiful after shed tears
over a boy, green lit ocean surrounding a black
island on her face as the older woman brushes back
loose strands, says other fish in the sea, but she knows
you don't fall in love with fish. you fall in love
with photographs, phone calls, that birth mark
on the back of his neck, the smell of coffee
because he's older, the suffering that comes
with giving it up or the fight that continues
when you won't, mom's warnings within you
illuminated when you say no to drugs and sex
and never the camera and his face when you don't,
tired eyes sunk back into a cherub face, raspberries
line the nape of your neck because he taught you
that you had that body part in the first place.
at the edge of beauty, all the lights are red
because the only thing there when you turn 17
is rabbit hole in the middle of the street
filled with knowledge of good and nothing ever is.