Langston Closed His Letters to Carlo

with pansies and marguerites. Purple asters and autumn leaves. Pine needles and snow. Tulipanes. Magnolias. Fresh Easter Eggs. Dandelions and cherry blossoms. White dogwood. Pañal and Bacardi. Peanuts and poppies. Spring sap. Apples and pears. Snowballs. A house full of niggers. Ten Cuban coons—with bongos between their knees. Stars over the black mountains. Bugles and banners. Reindeers and sleighbells. Ten abalones and one starfish. A thousand seagulls. Steelheads and spring salmon. 10 little colored hound dogs. Mexican hats. Twenty little ole jacks with red ribbons around their necks. 99 penthouses and a balloon. Happy days, siestas, and four Viva Chiles. Gas masks and gardenias. An orchid tree and an equator of diamonds. Ten little lizards with jeweled tails. 100 little very light green with jeweled backs and speckled paws very green little baby frogs gamboling beside a fresh fish fountain. 6 boxes with sliding panels and hidden keys. A black karakul kid. Two pale emerald frogs with onyx eyes and a pearly snail. Ten Scotch dachshunds. Leapfrogs. Stars and stripes. Spangled banners. Conch shells and African daisies. Summer solstices. Tulips and jonquils. Sincerely. Sincerely yours truly. Sincerely yours. Sincerely yours.1 Affectionately. Pomegranates, sequins, gold dust, and melon seed from here on unto the end.

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1 On November 19, 1957, Carl “Carlo” Van Vechten wrote in his letter’s closure to Hughes: With the warmest possible greetings and cordial feelings (I wish to GOD you would stop signing yourself “sincerely”. One is sincere with the butcher. It is taken for granted one is sincere with one’s friends. Certainly, I get letters from no one else in the world with such a conventional signing off.

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CM BURROUGHS is author of the poetry collections The Vital System (Tupelo Press, 2012) and Master Suffering (Tupelo Press, 2021), which was longlisted for the National Book Award in Poetry. Burroughs has been awarded fellowships and grants from Yaddo, MacDowell, Djerassi Foundation, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Cave Canem. She has received commissions from the Studio Museum of Harlem and the Warhol Museum to create poetry in response to art installations. Her poetry has been published in journals and anthologies including POETRY magazine, Callaloo, jubilat, Ploughshares, VOLT, Best American Experimental Writing Anthology, and The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks. Burroughs is associate professor of poetry at Columbia College Chicago.

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