Jonah Mixon-Webster

one poem

Cypher in Which I Cannot Save the Disciple in Boystown

For Keonte

As if your name in a mouth could channel your body back. In it, you cross and cross. In the moment that was more revelation than dream. We talk in too many words. You pull your whip. You pull. You. You Assume. You swear you can take me down. You tell me it gets fat. You know this too is a mirage you carry. This too we talk. We procure a seat before anonymous house. But no, we were not neighbors. And no, you are no fag. I call you a number you think is blank. You catch me stutter-step and backtalk. You tell me you’ve made it. Told me 26 as if age had no logic.  As if with no logic you touch me like you could. Said you used to be pretty. Said not no mo. And I want to ask you about it. About how you want. About the black tear-water. About the stubble and cloak. About your niece you watch every morning. How I want to sing it for you. And I will do this thing trying to save you with my mouth. You say in a prophetic sense I got people for shit like that. You ask and I tell you I know. You promise not. And it is a sad thing I do next — write everything that I can’t say hoping that it keeps you

Jonah Mixon-Webster is a poet-educator, scholar, and conceptual / sound artist from Flint, MI. His debut poetry collection, Stereo(TYPE), won the PEN America/Joyce Osterweil Award and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. He is an alumnus of Eastern Michigan University and Illinois State University. He is the recipient of the Windham Campbell Prize for Poetry and fellowships from Vermont Studio Center, Center for African American Poetry and Poetics, Images & Voices of Hope, The Conversation Literary Festival, and the PEN Writing for Justice Program. His poetry and hybrid works are featured in various publications including Obsidian, Harper’s, The Yale Review, The Rumpus, Callaloo, Pennsound, Best New Poets, and Best American Experimental Writing.