You are strange, my mother said, dwelling on the past.
If my life was the size of my arm, I would stretch it out for you.
He has stories that I am not in anymore. It’s healed this way.
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.
If America is Babylon / and you are an exile / newly arrived among pagans / Catholic, ‘Ngolan, Black, woman / you already know how to pray
I myself should never have been born
We stop doing dishes while a mile unwinds from the tree outside.
I like to think I’m also sprung, released from the furnace knocks, done with the heavy meat stews and salty soups.
In my universe, my arm carries a heart and flowers, my back a misguided quote
I am still waiting for the lion
You said it was okay to blame what goes wrong on the planet
Even as the sun warms the concrete the long nights’ sensual cold lingers in my clothes.
Yes I am guilty, I’m guilty. A sin was desirable then. Bring the dancer back to the stalks.
Do not say anything anybody else has said ever. Things are not “bleached by sun.”
I count my homes— those of my scattered youth the sanctuary of our young family the intermittent rest stops of apartments and vacations.
I imagine that undressing a color, though, would be so much like peeling a memory away from the grey and the white matter of your brain.
Winter sat like a wolf on the horizon.
Long after midnight, we’re talking about our first time
you quit wearing pants loaf around your yard in hole-nipped panties
You’ve spent a lifetime training for this.