Yesenia Montilla
When DMX died, it was a year into the pandemic. My father was dealing with his own health battles, and this video I came across of DMX on a coaster with his daughter reminded me that one of the things my dad loved to do with me as a kid was take me to Coney Island.
I had been thinking about how we can push the boundaries in poetry, not just in the poems themselves but in the definition of craft and labels. Example: here, I looked at this video as a work of art and thought what if I called this poem ekphrastic.
At first, I focused on description, really trying to capture the moment, but as I started to revise, I realized that, for me, the poem was about me and my dad. Both DMX and my father battled drug addiction. Both DMX and my father loved a good coaster and gathered their daughters protectively while wrapping them in appropriate dangers.
I started to play with the form of the poem first, to make it feel like free falling, like a coaster not only in the sound—shorter lines and soft v. hard sounds against one another—but also looking at the body of the poem on the page, the skinny drop of a line into another line into another. I wanted it to have some air in it, and some drops, like what a coaster provides. The sensation of being high, whether due to a coaster or drugs, needed to hold; that comparison was really important to me. I realized that when you have a parent who battles drug addiction, you too are battling drug addiction. As children we don’t know what safety is or how to trust when adults consistently let us down. The poem ends with trust and DMX’s voice, a father’s reassurance, his promise.
< draft 1 >
On the Day DMX Dies I Watch the Video of Him Riding a Coaster with His Daughter
Father’s and daughters
How they fit and sometimes
don’t
I watch as the sling clicks
into place
her side ponytail is truly
a vision
she whispers something to
him about not wanting to
his response I can’t make out
they take off
shoot into the sky like birds
she grabs his hand or he grabs hers
he gathers her
as they are flying,
birds without wings—
< final version >
On the Day DMX Dies I Watch the Video of Him Riding a Coaster with His Daughter
sling clicks into place
her side ponytail
a vision
she whispers
I don’t want to
he responds it’s too late
the sling takes off
shoots them into
the blue
nothing of
abandon
rewind:
even before that
she extends her hand & without
even looking he finds it
& gathers it
into his
as though her hand were
the last of the water for a
thirsty man
In air they are
flying,
catapulted
birds without wings
the unknowing of how
to
come
down
she screams
he
whispers
daddy’s got
you
daddy’s got
you —