poetry

We found in his suitcase T-shirts, his siddur, gifts he bought for his grandchildren…

Listen to me: I know
the winter gloom in
mid-summer…

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

Even from this distance I could go out
the door it would bang shut and crumble

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

I myself should never have been born

love is a soggy tea stain on a grocery receipt

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

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

I am not a guide
for every traveler
of loss.

my love is a glass shard, a knife made of madness and moonlight,
and there are already way too many fragments in this house

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

The sin is existing.

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

Now that the Israeli has left, it falls
on me to make the salad.

I would always rather be happy than
dignified. Rather held than held
in awe.

we drove on through
the blue seal of morning as the turbines
turned and winked out their hearts