BY MERVYN R. SEIVWRIGHT
amber grains wave in Des Moines, silence
the s—the monks have left. Just above
poor-trash-class life, south-side, struggling.
America. Our neighbor accepted us,
we play his Mattel’s Intellivision
video game. Watching him run outside
to grab softball size hail, storming
winds in circles, innings of pitches
from the sky. We listen to Music
Television’s birth: “Video Killed
the Radio Star,” “In the Air Tonight,”
“Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,”
“Whip it.” We went scrapping
for spare change, cutting grass,
collecting glass bottles. Joy riding,
jumping bikes in hilly dunes,
four-wheelers across sandy dunes,
jeeps in curvy dunes—hanging on
to jeep rails as the jeep rolls over—night joy
finds us tipping tired cows over—
hiding in shadows from angry farmers.
My voice at school places me
in speech classes so my American
teacher can understand my English
accent. Not sure if I got picked on
because of being black, sounding different,
or not being American when a car passed
our car with a sign, Niggers kiss ass,
squeezing ass cheeks against passenger
window. Amber grains wave us away.
Mervyn R. Seivwright has appeared in AGNI Literary Magazine, The Trinity Review (Canada), African American Review, Griffel Literature Review (Norway), Cape Cod Poetry Review, Burningword Literary Journal, INNSÆI Journal (India), Mount Island’s Lucy Terry Prince poetry contest 2nd Runner-Up, and Santa Fe Literary Review 2021 Pushcart Nominee. https://www.clippings.me/mervynseivwright
Process Note: My Process for the poem, “Nine Months in Midwest Wheat Country” is connected to a memoir collection of poetry targeting my transition in America from England at age ten to eighteen. In order to fill the bones of memories from my nine months experience in Iowa, I searched the historical events during that time to thicken the soup of the events I remembered. I choose to deliver tension towards the end of the narrative at the turning point, the last stanza, speaking what may have created the short stay, the vulnerability felt being a black immigrant at this location.