Aesthetics

By Amaud Jamaul Johnson

we must know a force
greater than our weaknesses
—Jean Toomer

like most boys, ignorant

or fearful of beauty, we

pinned back the wings

of butterflies and plucked

off their legs, and watched

and watched them tumble

from leaves like pinecones

wheeling from rooftops;

and we laughed.

we crumbled alka-seltzer

for the pigeons, “those

flying rats” my mother’s

ex-husband once called.

their bodies floundering like

toys flung from a window.

white foam from their mouths

stark against the asphalt

framing their artless convulsions

and we laughed

with open-mouths until

tears dripped from our

chins and our throats

were raw with the rightness

of god.

Source: Red Summer (Tupelo Press, 2006)

Biography

Born and raised in Compton, California, poet Amaud Jamaul Johnson was educated at Howard University and Cornell. His debut collection, Red Summer (2006), examines the infamous race riots of 1919, during which nearly a hundred African American men in cities across the country were lynched. The book won the 2004 Dorset Prize from Tupelo Press. Selecting the volume, judge Carl Phillips noted that “Johnson’s poems remind us that the . . .

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