The storm passes without snow.
The car waits loyally in the back lot.

I suffer visions and many indignities
while looking for the Lobster

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

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

my friends’ fathers are
dropping
I mean dying
like flies

There is so little left of the tomato plants.

If my life was the size of my arm, I would stretch it out for you.

my father holds
his favorite drink

I want to roll in this moment until I become its vocabulary
until I smell like the bones
until I am its echo…

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

You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

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

I imagined a cascade of slow death for all / that mattered…

and then her eyes fully opened — blazed through with strands of mud

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