POETRY

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

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

I Garden at the Edge of Autumn

There is so little left of the tomato plants.

An Endeavor of Being Now

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

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.

Black Ghosts of Ponderosa on a Silhouette of Hill

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

Several someones

a folksome, gruesome opera
of gauze and malcontent.

love poem with dead leaves & color

I would always rather be happy than
dignified. Rather held than held
in awe.

First

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

Despairathon

You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

oh Manifesto

The collective
failure
of ethical standards

things they won’t tell you but should:

love is a soggy tea stain on a grocery receipt

appetites

you quit wearing pants
loaf around your yard
in hole-nipped panties

Dis Place Ment

People have always coped with flooding, and they learned to cope with death.

Unerased | Steep Steps

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

Clueless & Briefly Gorgeous

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.

The Body is a Sin

The sin is existing.

Babylon

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

Aging Punks

Every so often, they add a tattoo
in honor of some long-forgotten love.