anger, like you can sink teeth into, candy apple
Long after midnight, we’re talking about our first time
Part of being a good sad person is always painting the shadows in the right direction and knowing what sorrow to art with.
I tap at the alphabet while a single deer taps at the dirt beyond the brush on the far side of the tree line.
It is the 70s. 1970s? 2570s? Who knows? Audre and I have a penthouse in New York.
In my universe, my arm carries a heart and flowers, my back a misguided quote
The sin is existing.
I don’t know why I’m in the garden kneeling on dirt
There is so little left of the tomato plants.
Even from this distance I could go out the door it would bang shut and crumble
you know that baby swallows make silver ripples in wild rivers to court reeds?
I myself should never have been born
Mostly he ate what was put on his plate snuck coffee grounds or dirt for a snack Once a zipper Unzipped
I have an axe with hearts gashed
how does an afternoon turn on its axis?
If America is Babylon / and you are an exile / newly arrived among pagans / Catholic, ‘Ngolan, Black, woman / you already know how to pray
Even as the sun warms the concrete the long nights’ sensual cold lingers in my clothes.
a folksome, gruesome opera of gauze and malcontent.
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.