Lights on the dashboard spell out
“You still can’t kiss me”

Even from this distance I could go out
the door it would bang shut and crumble

Listen to me: I know
the winter gloom in
mid-summer…

I want to roll in this moment until I become its vocabulary
until I smell like the bones
until I am its echo…

The storm passes without snow.
The car waits loyally in the back lot.

Okay, picture this: We’re in an elevator. The elevator shuts down. It doesn’t matter where we’re going, only that we’re alone.

I suffer visions and many indignities
while looking for the Lobster

We stop doing dishes while
a mile unwinds
from the tree outside.

Part of being a good sad person
is always painting the shadows
in the right direction and knowing
what sorrow to art with.

Any still figure at mid-late evening, when the long shadows make even crumbs appear arranged like furniture.

We found in his suitcase T-shirts, his siddur, gifts he bought for his grandchildren…

If America is Babylon / and you are an exile / newly arrived among pagans / Catholic, ‘Ngolan, Black, woman / you already know how to pray

Should have found a job by now; should have slept in the night;
should have boiled old coffee before noon.

my father holds
his favorite drink

I buy too much, for someone of my stature.
could pawn a skinny metaphor to purchase a plump skin.
its reputed in our lineage— to daydream a life that shreds our pockets.

In my universe, my arm carries a heart and flowers,
my back a misguided quote