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

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.

I am still waiting for the lion

here is the sky in stop motion, flickering,
a still shot in monochrome

I like to think I’m also sprung,
released from the furnace knocks,
done with the heavy meat stews
and salty soups.

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

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.

Ghosts for hire, whispers in her mouth,
cysts to feel, the symmetry of a gift.

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

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

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

Mostly he ate what was put on his plate
snuck coffee grounds or dirt for a snack
Once a zipper Unzipped

You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

Do not say anything anybody else has said ever. Things are not “bleached by sun.”

Part of being a good sad person
is always painting the shadows
in the right direction and knowing
what sorrow to art with.

I suffer visions and many indignities
while looking for the Lobster

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