Poetry in Motion
New York
Leave It All Up to Me
Major Jackson![A poster featuring art by Louis Delsarte depicts men and women celebrating the West Indian American Day Parade. Below this is a poem by Major Jackson titled Leave It all Up to Me.](https://poetrysociety.org/assets/poetry-in-motion/Major-Jackson-Poetry-in-Motion-NYC.jpg)
Leave It All Up to Me
All we want is to succumb to a single kiss
that will contain us like a marathon
with no finish line, and if so, that we land
like newspapers before sunrise, halcyon
mornings like blue martinis. I am learning
the steps to a foreign song: her mind
was torpedo, and her body was storm,
a kind of Wow. All we want is a metropolis
of Sundays, an empire of hand-holding
and park benches. She says, “Leave it all up to me.”
This poem appears in Major Jackson's collection Holding Company (W. W. Norton, 2012).
Transitions (2001) © Louis Delsarte. MTA NYC Church Avenue Station.
Commissioned by MTA Arts & Design.
You can purchase the volume here.