{"id":58,"date":"2020-06-01T11:18:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-01T16:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/poetrysouth\/?p=58"},"modified":"2022-12-01T11:19:02","modified_gmt":"2022-12-01T17:19:02","slug":"his-last-name-mine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/poetrysouth\/poetry\/his-last-name-mine\/","title":{"rendered":"His Last Name Mine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>Frederick-Douglass Knowles II<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I enter Cedar Grove\u2019s office<br>and extend the slit of sunlight<br>peering through a cracked door<br>lock eyes with an old sexton<br>inscribing names of fallen souls.<br>I stammer <em>hello<\/em>. Utter the silent<br>\u201c<em>K<\/em>\u201d in my last name. He flips<br>through an index of ancient files<br>brushes a layer of cumulus dust<br>from <em>1974<\/em>, and engraves <em>56 R7 HK<\/em><br>onto the yellow surface of a Post-It.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I thank him for his time, slowly<br>exit his office and descend down<br>the hillside studying each pillar<br>in search of my father\u2019s marker.<br>I pause in front of a pallid row<br>of ancient stone, flap the Post-It<br>over a cluster of ants, to unveil<br>the worn plaque of a Negroid<br>sailor. His last name mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Clouded tears recall the legacy<br>of an Airman recruit rigging chutes<br>for the USS Wright. A <em>Native Son<\/em><br>swaying to Coltrane in Korean cafes<br>with cinnamon women, who never<br>choked on the plume of black smoke<br>sewn into his skin. Debating Truman\u2019s<br>liberation of Yongsan that would churn<br>5 million <em>Seouls<\/em> into Korean dust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right\"><em>Issue 10, 2018, pg. 18<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Frederick-Douglass Knowles II I enter Cedar Grove\u2019s officeand extend the slit of sunlightpeering through a cracked doorlock eyes with an old sextoninscribing names of fallen souls.I stammer hello. Utter the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/poetrysouth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/poetrysouth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/poetrysouth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/poetrysouth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/poetrysouth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/poetrysouth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59,"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/poetrysouth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions\/59"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/poetrysouth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/poetrysouth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.muw.edu\/poetrysouth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}