Happiness by Yusef Komunyakaa

Happiness

When I’d win the fight

Over whose turn it was,

I sat on the top doorstep,

Grinning out into the Fourth

Of July, turning the freezer

Handle. I rocked to a tune

In my head, satisfied

I could hear Satchmo’s horn

On his birthday. “Dippermouth

Blues.” Hydrangeas bloomed

Along the sidewalks & fence.

The freezer’s wooden tub

Was packed with ice & salt,

Around a shiny cylinder

Filled with custard & peach

Slices. Caught up in the rhythm

Till an ache crawled

My arms. Fortissimo. Fire-

Works. The swim hole dynamited

A few days earlier, & voices

Rushed up now like loud

Hosannas. Hundreds of lanes

Snaked through oaks, wild fruit

& honeysuckle. Baskets overflowed

The bank. Big boys whistled at girls

& swandived from the tallest trees.

Small boys on the plankwalk

Jostled each other, springing up

& down like pogo sticks.

I turned the handle faster,

But the goat in the tree

Remained: Daddy Red forced

Me to stroke the throat

Before his butcher knife

Caught the sunlight.

The cry was a child’s.

Silence belonged to gods.

There was no paradise, no

Cakewalk for demons hidden

In grass. Old Lazy Bones

Shook out his limbs & pinwheeled

A dustdevil’s foxtrot. The air

Sweetened with the scent of goat

Cooking over a pit,

& the icecream hardened

The hurt in my arms

Made me happy.