Colosseum by Jericho Brown
Colosseum
Jericho BrownI don’t remember how I hurt myself,
The pain mine
Long enough for me
To lose the wound that invented it
As none of us knows the beauty
Of our own eyes
Until a man tells us they are
Why God made brown. Then
That same man says he lives to touch
The smoothest parts, suggesting our
Surface area can be understood
By degrees of satin. Him I will
Follow until I am as rough outside
As I am within. I cannot locate the origin
Of slaughter, but I know
How my own feels, that I live with it
And sometimes use it
To get the living done,
Because I am what gladiators call
A man in love—love
Being any reminder we survived.
MARGINALIA
1.
Day 18 of The Sealey Challenge. Today’s offering is The New Testament by Jericho Brown.
2.
I have always been drawn to works that delve deep into the struggles and complexities of identity. Perhaps because this is also something that I think about often and try to write about—explaining myself to myself maybe. In this book the poet weaves together themes of race, sexuality, and faith vis-a-vis the self. The poems reflect a search for meaning, for belonging, for a way to hold on to hope while you try to find safe spaces for yourself where you are allowed to just be.
3.
Too often in this world there will be people who refuse to see you for who you are. How then do you navigate intimacy and kindness?
4.
The poet also intertwines the sacred and the secular, drawing from religious imagery—not to seek comfort but to challenge and question. His poems engage in a dialogue with the divine, grappling with the contradictions of a society that preaches love while perpetuating hate. There’s a sense of being caught between different dimensions, of carrying the weight of multiple identities, each demanding acknowledgement and understanding.
KEEP READING
SOURCE
This poem appeared in The New Testament by Jericho Brown, published by Copper Canyon Press, 2014. Shared here with profound gratitude.
DESCRIPTION
“In the world of Jericho Brown’s second book, disease runs through the body, violence runs through the neighborhood, memories run through the mind, trauma runs through generations. Almost eerily quiet in even the bluntest of poems, Brown gives us the ache of a throat that has yet to say the hardest thing and the truth is coming on fast.”
ENDNOTES
- Read more poems by Jericho Brown • Find books by this poet • Or view my library
- Explore other works in pursuit of: the body • wounds • memory • Or browse the index
- This is part of The Sealey Challenge.
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