this is what I want you to to see:
leaves falling because it is too late for them not to

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

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

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

I tap at the alphabet while a single deer
taps at the dirt beyond the brush
on the far side of the tree line.

I myself should never have been born

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

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

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

He has stories that I am not in
anymore. It’s healed this way.

Winter sat like a wolf
on the horizon.

Gravel-scatted hell &
we were blessed to be able
to hold on for even a heartbeat

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

my father holds
his favorite drink