Listen to my last breath you’ll hear each breath I’ve drawn
Since my voice changed and the sound got
Deeper incline your head pull down a shroud from the heaven white
Folks get peace privacy from pull one down
To cover us I know you got a ladder or a string
A ladder in your pocket straight
And tall a white string made of white strings twisted tight
Together and it hangs
Above your head you pull and
A ladder rolls down from that heaven
White folks pull grave by grave to Earth
I know y’all got a heaven just for y’all and
A God who don’t speak or don’t make y’all listen listen
Incline your head that is the voice of God that breath
_____
Shane McCrae’s most recent books are The Gilded Auction Block (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019) and Sometimes I Never Suffered (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020). He has received a Whiting Writer’s Award, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Lannan Literary Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives in New York City and teaches at Columbia University.
Image By: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Ladder_to_sky_Escalera_al_cielo_Stairway_to_heaven.jpg