POETRY

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
—Rita Dove
First

Long after midnight, we’re talking about our first time

The Man

the man is stayed bent over the canvas
of my sofa. the man is me the man is him
self and I bring down the whip…

Unerased | Steep Steps

My grandmother asked, “Does it feel like being widowed?”

Like dirt

this is what I want you to to see:
leaves falling because it is too late for them not to

Babylon

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

Hollywood Hills
the remarkable thing

I am still waiting for the lion

Clotheslines

Ma wrings
a wet world
of colors

On the Night Row-Houses Across the Street Catch Fire

You let the yellow glow
from eye sockets. The building up the street
is burning faster and faster.

necromancer woman, witch woman

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

i do not want to wait until it’s too late

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.

The River

I myself should never have been born

Finding My Fix

I slumped in front of a massive desk, a passive patient corroded with failure and dread.

REVENGE SCENE

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.

Landscape with Ash

You are strange, my mother said, dwelling on the past.

All In

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

Tea

my father holds
his favorite drink

The Kotel in Jerusalem is Filled with Cracks

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

oh Manifesto

The collective
failure
of ethical standards