I like to think I’m also sprung, released from the furnace knocks, done with the heavy meat stews and salty soups.
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…
If America is Babylon / and you are an exile / newly arrived among pagans / Catholic, ‘Ngolan, Black, woman / you already know how to pray
Just starlight and some small scribbling across vinyl.
There is so little left of the tomato plants.
Even as the sun warms the concrete the long nights’ sensual cold lingers in my clothes.
Try not to see your own predicament in every fucking thing.
four-thirty a.m.
The sin is existing.
I don’t know why I’m in the garden kneeling on dirt
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.
and apples, mackintosh mostly, but any kind left in The Pub at the Assisted Living Place
It recommended soft porn, as gentle prodding and petting parent to parent might calm and soothe the kid.
My grandmother asked, “Does it feel like being widowed?”
Even from this distance I could go out the door it would bang shut and crumble
I imagine that undressing a color, though, would be so much like peeling a memory away from the grey and the white matter of your brain.
You’ve spent a lifetime training for this.
Empty vessels make the most sound, I think, as you rip the fairy lights off the handrail.
Her brown eyes, how a fig considers itself.
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.