Cameron Barnett: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

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Murmur

 

This became my first ghost: the drum

of a stethoscope to my infant chest, an echo

deep in a doctor’s ear, the sound she heard,

named it murmur—a swoosh in the space

between the beatings of my youngest heart

                        ~

When I’d run around as a toddler, my mother

always anticipated me falling down and not

getting back up. Later, my father’s stethoscope

told us there was nothing there—this became

my second ghost

                        ~

I played every sport I could growing up. I ran

until no kid in my class could outpace me.

I beat my heart up and down playgrounds and courts,

through grass stains and bloody knees. I wanted

to learn how to make my heart sing, and I wanted

to silence it too, but always my mother’s gaze

pressed heavy on me

                        ~

Be careful she would say, and Be careful Dad would say.

I ignored them. When I did karate in high school,

squaring up against men twice my size, my mother said

Be careful and my father said Be smart and because

I didn’t care for my heart then, I was careless

                        ~

Heartbreak came when I fell in love for the first time,

and my mother said nothing and my father said nothing,

and years passed with no echo to interrupt the ending,

as they held me, and we all listened to my third ghost

singing in the space between heartbeats

                        ~

And now I run, miles a day, for my health; and now I am

a haunted house of scars; and now I always fear,

like too many men in my family, that I will die because

of my heart; I always fear, like too many Black men,

that a heart is not enough to keep me alive

                        ~

We are all ghost stories, silent chests, a heavy wager

of collapse, and isn’t this what all our mothers fear?—

the fourth ghost: every echo of love misplaced somewhere

deep in our hearts, reconvening over us in our stillness,

murmuring Be careful

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Cameron Barnett is a Pittsburgh poet, teacher. He’s the author of The Drowning Boy’s Guide to Water and Murmur, from Autumn House Press. His work explores the complexity of race, place, and relationships for Black people in America.

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                                                                 Adeboye Abiodun, Diary of a Black Boy, Lost Ball 1

 

 

Comments

[Clarinda Harriss]

Haunting in every way , this ghost story. And like much of the best writing, I learned an actual literal fact from the poem— I’ve always had a heart murmur but never knew what it sounded like till now.

[Lola Haskins]

That is beautiful and brave and devastating, all at once. Thank you, Cameron.

[Bill Nevins]

Brilliant and a bit scary!

[lally]

"a heavy wager / of collapse" brilliant

[Nin Andrews]

Such a moving poem!

[Sr. Leslie]

A very moving and powerful poem…in reading it, the ghosts of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice..and Emmett Till and on the list goes…Thank you Terence and thank you Cameron…

[Don Berger]

"And now I run, miles a day, for my health; and now I am / a haunted house of scars..."!!!!!--what a picture I drew from this, what a condition to design for us in that passage's second line, !nside and starting to close out this original account--a focussed, vivid, compelling account! The father's stethoscope, "my second ghost"! Thanks for showing us this Terence!

[Terence Winch]

Leslie---thanks for the comment.

[Terence Winch]

Don: thanks for the comment.

[susan campbell]

Love this!

[Grace Cavalieri]

If I were a teen I'd say AWESOME..Let me say it anyway.

[Eileen Reich]

Such a moving poem. We all have our ghosts. Love this poem and artwork.

[Jennifer O’Riordan]

This is beautiful and so moving