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Togetherness

By Yusef Komunyakaa b. 1947 Yusef Komunyakaa

Someone says Tristan

& Isolde, the shared cup

& broken vows binding them,

& someone else says Romeo

& Juliet, a lyre & Jew’s harp

sighing a forbidden oath,

but I say a midnight horn

& a voice with a moody angel

inside, the two married rib

to rib, note for note. Of course,

I am thinking of those Tuesdays

or Thursdays at Billy Berg’s

in LA when Lana Turner would say,

“Please sing ‘Strange Fruit’

for me,” & then her dancing

nightlong with Mel Torme,

as if she knew what it took

to make brass & flesh say yes

beneath the clandestine stars

& a spinning that is so fast

we can’t feel the planet moving.

Is this why some of us fall

in & out of love? Did Lady Day

& Prez ever hold each other

& plead to those notorious gods?

I don’t know. But I do know

even if a horn & voice plumb

the unknown, what remains unsaid

coalesces around an old blues

& begs with a hawk’s yellow eyes.

Yusef Komunyakaa, “Togetherness,” from Poetry (May 2005). Copyright © 2005 by Yusef Komunyakaa.

Source: Poetry (May 2005).

Biography

In his poetry, Yusef Komunyakaa weaves together the elements of his own life in short lines of vernacular to create complex images of life in his native Louisiana and the jungles of Vietnam. From his humble beginnings as the son of a carpenter, Komunyakaa has traveled far to become a scholar, professor, and prize-winning poet. In 1994, he claimed the Pulitzer Prize and the $50,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for his Neon . . .

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