From NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF THE BROWN BOY AND THE WHITE MAN

Ronaldo Wilson
(From Narrative of the Life of the Brown Boy and the White Man (Pitt Poetry Series), University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008

One house is red, up on a red mountain. The house is
windowless and cold. In the garage of the red house is a car
and in that car is a red button. This button does nothing.
The car is silver and has four black wheels with silver rims,
one covered in dirt. The dirt is not from the mountain.
In the red house are a brown boy and a white man. They
hate each other. It smells clean. Love is the smell of their
hate. The brown boy in the red house imagines murdering
the white man. Cutting up a body is a concern of the brown
boy, but never of the white man, who is big and strong and
innocent of such a thought.

One house is clear. No plants. See-through. Just animals
made of sipping noises, steel flashes, and tinctured skin
flaps. There is a different stink in the clear house. There is
sound in that house, papers clicking and burps, the smell
from the brown boy and the white man eating and shitting
there.

The brown boy brings home clear shelves to hold
newspapers and glossy cutouts of more brown people. The
brown boy needs space to work. The white man will make
space for the brown boy, who he wishes would grow up to be
a nice man. The brown boy is mean and wants to live in the
garage with the silver car and the silver walls the white man
painted around the car to match. He loves the white man. It
is true love. The brown boy gets what he wants. The white
man gives the brown boy whatever he asks for.

The clear house cannot be burned down. The house is
not made of plastic, sulfur, or anything that would ever melt
or burn. But the red house is burning away slowly, though
not from fire. Fire won’t occur there. Besides, the white man
would smell fire. The brown boy would spot fire. Bleach,
cleaner, cleaning fluid eats into the rugs in the red house.
The brown boy kills bugs with household products. He is a
murderer and a torturer, a baby and a jerk that would like to
kill insects, fart, and take naps forever.

The white man sometimes has bad breath and asks
questions only to get insulted in both houses. The brown
boy ignores the white man’s question: What ah you doin?
Coughing, scrunching papers, and anything that derides
his brown life, the brown boy will either ignore or notice
whenever he feels like it.

At lunch, the brown boy noticed the smallest bulge of
another white man disappear as the pig ate a pile of fries
and swallowed a green pickle in three bites. He told the
white man about the eating that he saw. He named the fat
pig Tub-O-Lard. Tub-O-Lard eats his burger upside down
so the round bun can tank down to his fat gut. Tub-O-Lard
eats an entire onion ring in one bite.

The white man and the brown boy have in common
only what is fantasized by the brown boy when they eat
together. But in the silver car, the white man tells the
brown boy he will be eighty one day, staring out of a
window unable to move and still talking about everyone
he sees. The brown boy wants to be a thin, white woman
with pelvic-less hips and dancer-damaged legs, teetering
in calfskin pants and priceless flats. The brown boy never
dreams of being his own body. He only longs after big white
men. The white man slips on his black coat and asks the
brown boy what he needs. The white man will go to the
gym. The brown boy will go for a jog whenever he is ready.

NARRATIVE 1-4 by Elizabeth Hildreth

One house is dead, up in the sky. The house is window-bottomed and cold. In the garage is someone else’s button that never gets pressed and never does pressing. This button was once silver with four petals with silver rims, once covered in spit. The spit was not from the sky.

In the dead house are a human, x 4. They hate each other. It smells like spring. Love is the smell of their springing. The 1 human in the skyhouse imagines murdering 2. Cutting up a body is a concern as it may be to 3 and 4 and so 4th,
but for now let’s stick to thoughts.

One house is on fire. The white furniture melting its marshmallows. The orange outlines of animals eating Os. The flames not so high that the shit wiped with one palm over the sheet has been erased.

Nor the shelves toppling with prosthetics for every arm, leg, skull, and eye. To work they must. What is it, 4? If not to make people love you? So 2 is a conceptual space the size of a keyhole. Come in, love, to where you are. 1 has to wonder, why does dying feel hot? Why does 2 love what isn’t and wasn’t? 1 when pressed will give 2 much or nothing.

The firehouse is meant to burn. It is of plastic, of sulfur, of pink worms the color of skin x 4. The skyhouse is burning slowly, though not from
fire. From sogginess. 2 say it like this: The sky is 2 soggy for family. A sky should be special from fire, but fire smell is like soap. But fire feel is bug creeping across a sky rope. 1 kills every mood with its 1 mood called killing. 1 loves the murderers, the torturers, the babies, the jerks that kill and fart and take a nap in the sky, never to wake.

So 2 does bad breath like the sky and asks for nothing like bad air in both houses. Like 1-4 ignoring. Questions? Feelings. Coughing, scrunching papers, and anything that lives like life, 1 could feel or ignore or both, but luck has it.

At lunch, monsters were everywhere–little and white, big and white. With mouths of pig-sized holes stuffed with pigs. God said you can bite or be bitten but to live as a human-stuffed pig is to be touched. Without pressing the button, 1 said you will be 80 one day. You will throw your gums in the grass and cry. This is just a fantasy, of course. You could be 40. 1 wants to be a thin blade with many legs. Also 2 to be talking. Wherever it was, it got 3 teetering.

White, well, and just 1 way from dreaming or dancing. It (2) wants out of its tubular black body. In its mindful eye, it looks starry. Which 1 has seen coming. Which is why ready is running.