POETRY
“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
Millions of Americans have been affected by identity theft. It’s probably the greenhouse gases.
He has stories that I am not in
anymore. It’s healed this way.
Even as the sun warms the concrete
the long nights’ sensual cold lingers in my clothes.
If America is Babylon / and you are an exile / newly arrived among pagans / Catholic, ‘Ngolan, Black, woman / you already know how to pray
I slumped in front of a massive desk, a passive patient corroded with failure and dread.
The two of us toast to a man we both love, to whatever degree, clink our glasses and laugh…
Do not say anything anybody else has said ever. Things are not “bleached by sun.”
Ghosts for hire, whispers in her mouth,
cysts to feel, the symmetry of a gift.
Even from this distance I could go out
the door it would bang shut and crumble
Empty vessels
make the most sound, I think,
as you rip the fairy lights off the handrail.
