Grand Army Plaza

“Grand Army Plaza” from PASSION probably isn’t June’s most-known poem, or her best. What intrigues me is the address of contradiction, and the final wisdom imparted by the journey of the poem through the territory of history, politics and sex—all at once. Part of the power of June’s overall poetic vision comes from acknowledging contradictions: the contradictions of loving, of war, the contradictions of the phrase itself: “civil war”. This is quintessential June.....Joy Harjo

Grand Army Plaza
(for Ethelbert)
Why would anybody build a monument to civil war?

The tall man and myself tonight
we will not sleep together
we may not
either one of us
sleep
in any case
the differential between friend and lover
is a problem
definitions curse
as nowadays we’re friends
or
we were lovers once
while overarching the fastidious the starlit
dust
that softens space between us
is the history that bleeds
through shirt and blouse
alike

the stain of skin on stone

But on this hard ground curved by memories
of union and disunion and of brothers dead
by the familiar hand
how do we face to face a man
a woman
interpenetrated
free
and reaching still toward the kiss that will
not suffocate?

We are not survivors of a civil war

We survive our love
because we go on
loving

June Jordan