Brandon Kilbourne
Brandon Kilbourne, originally from Louisiana, is a Black biologist living in Berlin, Germany. He explains that the key to his research is international fieldwork pursuing roadkill and rummaging through museum freezers to study the anatomy that enables weasels to scurry and otters to swim. He relates that the beginnings of his poems arise not only from the bones and muscles that he studies but also from the human connections made during his travels. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Sky Island Journal, Beach Reads, Catamaran Literary Reader, Naugatuck River Review, Sea to Sky Review, Panel Magazine, Tahoma Literary Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, SLANT, and Ecotone.
ERINNERUNG
On those white sands, we inhabit
the word that you taught me,
dotting the quilt of sunbathers,
the kite-boarders’ turquoise playground
glistered to the offing.
Self-conscious of the found
beauty raying out in the thin
lines etching your cheeks and temples,
I instead stare down at your naked legs,
your toes dug into the sand.
Watching the kite-towed boards rollick
under the cloud-free blue, we practice each
other’s mother tongue, haltingly
recounting kindred grey childhoods,
one where the father is
unloving and cold,
die andere wo der Vater
herrisch und kontrollsüchtig ist.
Translating my boyhood back to English,
you say, “Your father is
a coward,” as I listen with my eyes
upon your hands worked rough,
your lava-blond hair spilled down your neck.
On those white sands, we inhabit
the word that you that afternoon taught me,
Erinnerung – the name of a small isle
standstill with turquoise and sunlight’s blue,
where two strangers speak two languages while
kites zip over combers in midday’s hours –
a timeless island that outlives
its own sinking beneath the waves,
indelible as scars speaking
of paternal wounds.
References:
Erinnerung – The German word for “memory.”
“die andere wo der Vater/herrisch und kontrollsüchtig ist” (lines 17-18) – Translation to English: the other where the father is domineering and control-seeking.
©2021 West Trade Review
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