Nandi Comer

A Portrait in Club Heaven

after Mickalene Thomas

Most men can’t tell a diamond 

from crystal. Can’t tell a Cadillac engine purr 

from a garage-scraped truck. Does it matter? 

They all come with a thirst to grab 

at my insides, so I learn to hum 

in every key of woman, make a mockery

of their ruin. They don’t know I am made 

of shadow and lip. As a boy,  

an auntie, who was not really kin, 

taught me to use my mouth  

to prepare a new mascara brush, 

Another bought me my first 

pack of hairpins and a butterfly comb 

so shiny with shimmer, I just knew 

I’d have a man eating from my longest nail. 

I am a two-toned velvet gal, spread flower, 

and looking to be hitched. I preside 

over my legs and my small wrists. I know

every moonflower eventually dies of sunshine

or under the pressure of a tire or 

tucked in a boy's shirt. But before 

I am disappeared, the world will know 

my waistline was meant for sequence

and rhinestones. I never gave in. 

How to Get Home

after Jamaica Kincaid

don’t call your daddy; flag down an aunty on her way home from her third shift gutting gizzards out of Tyson birds too big for their beaks; give the choir director gas money; walk as sunrise creeps through rooftops and shines that golden dappled light through downtown; catch the downtown bus to the crosstown to the Joy Rd. until the White Castle’s and from there, you should know your way on foot; call to make movie plans with a friend four days before and make sure you have snack money, phone money, and a couple of dollars for her mama’s tank; find the least janky jitney in front of a busy grocery store; if it’s payday, hail a taxi; if it's not a payday, touch the elbow of Miss Gladys with the classic ‘74 sky blue Impala; ask around to see who in your study group stay around you; call grandma with this last quarter I’ve tucked in your backpack pocket; don’t call collect; make sure it ain’t your daddy’s weekend; tell that guy you stay up whispering on the phone every night you’re hungry, promise him ain’t nothing like the meatloaf and Kool Aid at the Coney two blocks from home, get your food to go, don’t let him drive you home; bat your longest sad eye at Miss Gladys; pedal that bike i got you hard and fast before the first flicker of the street lights; no matter who is left, don’t go nowhere; even if you are the last one after dance class with your teacher and her screwed up face, wait; wait in the vestibule; wait in the office; wait at the front desk; wait by the front door; right outside the door; in the parking lot; on that corner you like so much;  at a friend’s house on their plastic wrapped couch and don’t touch her dolls or her mother’s figurines; wait; wait on the porch; at the gas station; in the car; in the bus shelter that never smells like piss; wait after school; wait after practice; after academic games; after theater club; after chess club; after your daddy finishes with that woman he insists on visiting; wait until after dark; until after the news; until after Golden Girls; after The Cosby Show; after A Different World; after Martin; wait until you are the only one left; wait until your momma gets off her shift; 

don’t let just anybody take you home.

Nandi Comer served as the 2nd Poet Laureate of the state of Michigan from 2023 to 2025. She is the author of the chapbook, American Family: A Syndrome (Finishing Line Press). Her debut poetry collection, Tapping Out (Triquarterly), won the Society of Midland Authors Award and Julie Suk Award. She has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Callaloo, Modern Ancient Brown, Mass Moca, the Academy of American Poets, among others. She currently serves as the 2025-2026 Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing and as a co-Director of Detroit Lit.

Headshot taken by Khary Mason

Artwork: “Spare Parts, Huh?” by Daniel Lurie

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