How Do You Get to Harlem?

By TYREE DAYE

What did I know of skylines,
of a sea of brown faces not in a field,
but walking down Lenox Avenue?

Our cousins from New York talked about Harlem
the way our aunts, with their Sunday stockings
drying over the shower curtain like tobacco leaves,

talked about a heaven. I tried to imagine
a skyline where a patch of pines stood and swayed.

Every summer when they’d visit we’d make a moon around them
and listen to stories about city life,

my mother always in the background shaking her head—
she could hear us leaving already.

My favorite part was the train,

how it can take you
where you needed to be.

 

Tyree Daye is a poet from Youngsville, North Carolina. He is the author of two poetry collections: River Hymns, which won the 2017 APR/Honickman First Book Prize, and Cardinal, forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press in 2020. Daye is a 2017 Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship Finalist and Cave Canem Fellow. Daye’s work has been published in Prairie Schooner,The New York Times, and Nashville Review. Daye won the 2019 Palm Beach Poetry Festival Langston Hughes Fellowship, is a 2019 Diana and Simon Raab Writer-in-Residence, and is a 2019 Kate Tufts Discovery Award Finalist.

[Purchase Issue 17 here.]

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

How Do You Get to Harlem?

Related Posts

cover of paradiso

May 2025 Poetry Feature: Dante Alighieri, translated by Mary Jo Bang

DANTE ALIGHIERI
In order that the Bride of Him who cried out loudly / When He married her with His sacred blood / Might gladly go to her beloved / Feeling sure in herself and with more faith / In Him—He ordained two princes / To serve her, one on either side, as guides.

A photograph of leaves and berries

Ode to Mitski 

WILLIAM FARGASON
while driving today     to pick up groceries / I drive over     the bridge where it would be  / so easy to drive     right off     the water  / a blanket to lay over     my head     its fevers  / I do want to live     most days     but today / I don’t     I could     let go of the wheel  

The Month When I Watch Joker Every Day

ERICA DAWSON
This is a fundamental memory. / The signs pointing to doing something right / and failing. Educated and I lost / my job. Bipolar and I cannot lose / my mind. The first responder says I’m safe. / Joaquin Phoenix is in the hospital. / I’m in my bedroom where I’ve tacked a sheet...