POETRY
“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
Millions of Americans have been affected by identity theft. It’s probably the greenhouse gases.
He has stories that I am not in
anymore. It’s healed this way.
Even as the sun warms the concrete
the long nights’ sensual cold lingers in my clothes.
I want to roll in this moment until I become its vocabulary
until I smell like the bones
until I am its echo…
The two of us toast to a man we both love, to whatever degree, clink our glasses and laugh…
it’s touch-and-go with me and weddings
If America is Babylon / and you are an exile / newly arrived among pagans / Catholic, ‘Ngolan, Black, woman / you already know how to pray
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.
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…
I slumped in front of a massive desk, a passive patient corroded with failure and dread.
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.
my love is a glass shard, a knife made of madness and moonlight,
and there are already way too many fragments in this house
Ghosts for hire, whispers in her mouth,
cysts to feel, the symmetry of a gift.