Next of Kin.

• Author: Porter, Liza
• Position: Poem

for JRB, 1956-2004

With our black cloth and cracked glass eyes, with surrender in our hearts like ragged white flags, our muscles twisted ropes of used-up lives, we lift this casket built of sewn-together bones, we lift this new home above a pauper's grave, we raise this exhausted body over our heads. We have animal strength, we have the same red eyes, we have the same virus, the same desires, our hands have wiped up the bloody dust, we raise this body, this shell of scarred skin, we raise Johnnie, held together with stitches and steel pins. We let go of the soul of one who gave in. We know his storied tongue, the rusted barbed wire, we've worn the filthy clothes, the starving yellow eyes, we've seen people fall into the streets like ghosts, we raise the crutches that helped to keep...