Kith - Kevin Young

[Lawrence Robinson]

Kith

All week I have wondered
           what kith
meant—

always paired
           with kin, can it be
the same thing?

Kin seems like
           like, like kind,
as in our kind,

us—kindness,
           we hope,
or something to like.

Kith is more
           helpless, married
as it is to kin—

Kith is what you find
           in the cemetery, names
effaced from their graves,

names you may not
           know, but share,
or share though don’t yet know.

Kith is not
           yesterday—
that’s ancestry—nor

is it today—kin
           keeps that close—
no, kith

is tomorrow
           & who knows?
Is outliving

the dead, but means
           the dead too, resting
here on the sill

among the blue
           bottles—both the flies
& the glass

that once held what?
           Kith
is that. The pair

of shoes that still
           keep the wearer’s shape
after removed—

whether moments ago, dog-tired,
           or years later,
still standing—

though nobody asked
           them to—long beyond
when the wearer’s gone.

	- Kevin Young