‘Say Thank You Say I’m Sorry’
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Version 0 of 1. This week, the Book Review asked two prominent American poets to write original poems responding to this historic moment in our country. Claudia Rankine, whose poem “Weather” appears on the front cover of the June 21 issue, is the author of “Citizen: An American Lyric” and other collections, as well as two plays and various essays. She teaches at Yale. Her new book, “Just Us: An American Conversation,” will be published in September. Jericho Brown’s third volume of poetry, “The Tradition,” won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. His poem “Say Thank You Say I’m Sorry” appears here and on the back page of the issue. Say Thank You Say I’m Sorry I don’t know whose side you’re on, But I am here for the people Who work in grocery stores that glow in the morning And close down for deep cleaning at night Right up the street and in cities I mispronounce, In towns too tiny for my big black Car to quit, and in every wide corner Of Kansas where going to school means At least one field trip To a slaughterhouse. I want so little: another leather bound Book, a gimlet with a lavender gin, bread So good when I taste it I can tell you How it’s made. I’d like us to rethink What it is to be a nation. I’m in a mood about America Today. I have PTSD About the Lord. God save the people who work In grocery stores. They know a bit of glamour Is a lot of glamour. They know how much It costs for the eldest of us to eat. Save My loves and not my sentences. Before I see them, I draw a mole near my left dimple, Add flair to the smile they can’t see Behind my mask. I grin or lie or maybe I wear the mouth of a beast. I eat wild animals While some of us grow up knowing What gnocchi is. The people who work at the grocery don’t care. They say, Thank you. They say, Sorry, We don’t sell motor oil anymore with a grief so thick You could touch it. Go on. Touch it. It is early. It is late. They have washed their hands. They have washed their hands for you. And they take the bus home. |