who I searched for on bookstore shelves in a leap of faith

off one poem that sucker-punched my softest, blackest spot.

When people search for me,

                  they search Evie Shockley,

who I searched for after workshop because the way in which

she pulled language out of a dense feeling seemed cousin

to mine, a feeling in the stomach so dense that light can’t escape it.

When people search for me,

                  they search for francine j. harris,

who I searched for online after reading the poem about Katherine

with the lazy eye, or francine herself, or whoever I knew from

my own life that could fit the outline traced around another’s absence.

When people search for me,

                  they search for Patricia Smith,

who I searched for in the crowd after her panel because she’s

been a teacher to many I’d want to teach me and comes

from the city I love, where teachers like my father strike

to strike back against attempts at their diminishment.

When people search for me,

                  they search for Danez Smith,

who I searched for at the fish fry some years back, because

I once found a friend who’d found a friend in them.

When people search for me,

                  they search for Jericho Brown,

who I searched for after a happenstance dinner one night deep

in Brooklyn because it was dark everywhere, and I needed

that laugh more than I needed food or a stiff drink to bring

my walls down while my government built one.

When people search for me,

                  they search for Ross Gay,

who I searched for after that backyard reading in Portland

for no other reason than he seemed to have the rare kind

of eyes that see people as persons all their own.

 

                          When

   they search for me,

   they search for them;

   they search for themselves,

on their own behalf. And

                          when

   they search for us,

   they search for poets

of a certain ink. And

                          when

   they search for poetry,

   they search for answers.

                          When

   they search for me,

   they search for them.

                          When

   they search for us,

   they search,

ultimately, for questions.

 

They search poets.

                      They search me.

They search a certain ink.

                      They search me.

They search people

who know to question, even if they know nothing else,

because suspicion is where a scheme

starts to fall apart.