If my life was the size of my arm, I would stretch it out for you.

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

I am still waiting for the lion

I don’t
know why
I’m in the garden
kneeling on dirt

You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

my father holds
his favorite drink

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

Gravel-scatted hell &
we were blessed to be able
to hold on for even a heartbeat

I am not a guide
for every traveler
of loss.

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

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

the strands of your hair on the bathroom tiles aren’t sketching defeat. that’s you spitting disease in the face with another day you’ve woken up to.

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

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

and then her eyes fully opened — blazed through with strands of mud

Even as the sun warms the concrete
the long nights’ sensual cold lingers in my clothes.

Empty vessels
make the most sound, I think,
as you rip the fairy lights off the handrail.