a folksome, gruesome opera
of gauze and malcontent.

Ma wrings
a wet world
of colors

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

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

Should have found a job by now; should have slept in the night;
should have boiled old coffee before noon.

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

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

my friends’ fathers are
dropping
I mean dying
like flies

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

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

Winter sat like a wolf
on the horizon.

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

Lights on the dashboard spell out
“You still can’t kiss me”

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

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

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

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

My grandmother asked, “Does it feel like being widowed?”