POETRY
“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
If America is Babylon / and you are an exile / newly arrived among pagans / Catholic, ‘Ngolan, Black, woman / you already know how to pray
Do not say anything anybody else has said ever. Things are not “bleached by sun.”
I would always rather be happy than
dignified. Rather held than held
in awe.
the strands of your hair on the bathroom tiles aren’t sketching defeat. that’s you spitting disease in the face with another day you’ve woken up to.
Yes I am guilty, I’m guilty. A sin was desirable then.
Bring the dancer back to the stalks.
Millions of Americans have been affected by identity theft. It’s probably the greenhouse gases.
Part of being a good sad person
is always painting the shadows
in the right direction and knowing
what sorrow to art with.
Any still figure at mid-late evening, when the long shadows make even crumbs appear arranged like furniture.
He has stories that I am not in
anymore. It’s healed this way.
You let the yellow glow
from eye sockets. The building up the street
is burning faster and faster.
Should have found a job by now; should have slept in the night;
should have boiled old coffee before noon.
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.
Ghosts for hire, whispers in her mouth,
cysts to feel, the symmetry of a gift.