a folksome, gruesome opera
of gauze and malcontent.

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

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

Ma wrings
a wet world
of colors

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

you know that
baby swallows make silver ripples
in wild rivers to court reeds?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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