Tina Cane

Essay on Gentrification

for Tongo Eisen-Martin

Gentrification     means I have arrived     in a manner     only half foreseen     
as half of me     claims culprit or lays claim     to my neighborhoods and stoops 
spanning shambles     to the ramblings of my education     
                    meaning I know     
all about expresso     and the benefits of self-expression     meaning I still
trip myself up     render myself mute     as reflex to tradition    for a long line 
of providing comfort     constitutes survival     prior to mine     
if property is still     an interest to protect     it also interests me     
in other ways     meaning I spend 
                                            my days sweeping the floor      
sometimes writing     sometimes imagining a table     strewn with pheasant 
and clattering plates     where a feast takes place     in my absence     where plans 
for re-paving move forward     without my input     or my permission     as I 
envision the wave of a hand     prompting someone     to pass the bread 
to someone who likes     their wine cool     their butter soft and lightly salted     
someone akin to me      who warms each pat     with her breath     a hint 
of bitter ancestors on it

Minority Report

"That's my break-up scene"     the poet wrote     and everything turned 
to a near-perfect confection     of confession and universal feeling 
he was Irish     or was he?     does it matter     
                that in a movie I saw   
a group of young Irish men     having been treated badly by England     
liken themselves to Black Americans     does it matter
                  that I was skeptical
of this comparison     despite my love of The Dubliners     my longing 
to see a thousand shades of green     
                everything is relative these days     
but still I try     to find meaning 
meaning     if I was my children's first friend     
then I hope one day     they'll be my friends again     meaning if love 
is a dog from hell     then trust is her rescued cousin     
                                            the other day 
I heard the term conspirituality     which refers to the trend of luring people     
towards conspiracy theories     on the internet     with the pretense 
of spiritual practice     Aha I remarked     herein lies the history of man      
too often and every day     I am thinking about words     like wind 
my thoughts lift     and carry themselves away
                                                how the ephemeral 
is not soft but sharp     when it comes to pangs     a notion of mine 
that now lives among the trees     
                                                       part of this     a friend tells me  
is about not being ready internally     to reveal what the poem is about     
Oh, you with your crystalline vision I say Tell me about the other parts

Tina Cane serves as the Poet Laureate of Rhode Island where she is the founder and director of Writers-in-the-Schools, RI.  Cane is the author of The Fifth Thought, Dear Elena: Letters for Elena Ferrante, poems with art by Esther Solondz, Once More With Feeling, and Body of Work. She is a 2020 Poet Laureate Fellow with the Academy of American Poets and the creator/curator of the distance reading series, Poetry is Bread. Her new poetry collection, Year of the Murder Hornet, is forthcoming from Veliz Books in 2022, and her debut novel-in-verse for young adults, Alma Presses Play, (Penguin/Random House) will be released in September 2021.

Photo by Cormac Crump.