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

I count my homes—
those of my scattered youth
the sanctuary of our young family
the intermittent rest stops
of apartments and vacations.

It is the 70s. 1970s? 2570s? Who knows?
Audre and I have a penthouse in New York.

Ma wrings
a wet world
of colors

love is a soggy tea stain on a grocery receipt

Try not to see your own predicament in every fucking thing.

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.

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

Winter sat like a wolf
on the horizon.

my friends’ fathers are
dropping
I mean dying
like flies

my father holds
his favorite drink

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

Any still figure at mid-late evening, when the long shadows make even crumbs appear arranged like furniture.

It recommended
soft porn, as gentle prodding and petting parent
to parent might calm and soothe the kid.

I have observed, the theorist
I am

you know that
baby swallows make silver ripples
in wild rivers to court reeds?

how does an afternoon turn
on its axis?

my love is a glass shard, a knife made of madness and moonlight,
and there are already way too many fragments in this house