Lake Attire in Flint
A poem by Isaiah Diaz-Mays

Lake Attire in Flint

My best friend drowned here, the damp fields
enclosed by vast silos filled to brim

with tiny grains of sun. Pink tongues swallow lush
horizons that hover over irradiate fish

who splash around the weary lake as they butterfly
stroke turning droplets to glitter, in the same torso of

water where Black boys and girls dip their heads
bobbing for hope, searching for ancestral

guidance or a compass, or perhaps both,
or state legislation that’ll protect us from hawks

decorated in navy blue or sapphire suits, or perhaps
both. Perhaps when I grow up I’ll be able to afford

a suit and fill it with my body before my funeral,
likely the first and last time

I’ll wear a suit outside of church.
The same body nourished with bane each time

I take a sip from the weary lake, though I know
I shouldn’t, I still do, because what choice is left?

Water is churning more expensive than suits, and after all,
the lake is filled with radiant fish.

I take a nap on a dank patch next to a large silo. When I
wake I find my best friend, who never

really drowned, just lost his rod during a fishing trip
trying to catch the sun.

About the Author:

Isaiah Diaz-Mays, an Afro-Latino writer, scholar and journalist from Hudson County, New Jersey. A graduate from Dartmouth College’s master of arts in liberal studies program, Isaiah has been fortunate to participate in a handful of workshops including a fiction workshop at Tin House and a poetry manuscript workshop with Tupelo Press. Isaiah is a son, a big brother, r&b and hip-hop lover, and die hard Atlanta Falcons fan.

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