She’s the outline of noir, lipscinched in an eclipse as when her girlhood sank into sea waves brushed with fog,where the wraiths of twilight women drifted unmoored like manesof galloping horses through her night’s itinerary. She recasts them rib by rib,unlocking their bodies from wreckage, their eyes kindling in Cimmerian shadeas they flow molten gold through mythic ruins slung in…
A woman named Gloria tells me that all the treesin her neighborhood remind her of zombies. In my backyard, a crew came and cut down the big tree.My neighbor laughs at how barren our once beautiful yard now looks. My people used to speak in a language of words that looked like trees.The alphabet grew…
Body of beeswax, core a tough braid,strung in a pair as the pair was made—snip the wick, choose one, set it in brass,ready the match and the strike. Powerless,bless the lozenge of flame and its glowthrown over table and novel, the fewthings worth paying mind to in hurricane dark.Or, on an uncloudy day, done with…
Purple, crumpled shut-ins, these scalloped flowersneither wrestle, nor do they crumble. Poet,may I call you Mother (since mine has died), orwill you reject me?
I don’t like moving, too,being moving, moving myselfand by myself through space;it means permeating in a new way, measuring the daydifferently, carrying, as if onmy back, heavy as a dressing table,my own image, what I want to do when I get there, dealingwith my things, what movesme and what doesn’t, to action—and so I avoid…
Anhedonia is a subset of depression.It is the inability to feel pleasure. Step with me, mud toed and silent,into the mirror of water.Bodies remember the water,womb slick, the building of bone. Into the mirror of waterripple beside me, below me.Womb slick, the building of bone.Memory cold in your mouth. Ripple beside me, below me.Nothing sustains…
More than most, forthis I feelif I have itall is well:wrangled upinto a ball,handsome reelfrom wriggled scrawl,or lapping strandstwisted thin, thenturned aroundtheir spool or cone, inV’s, in X’s,so much there’sno need to thinkhow much is there.Soft, let loose, butcuts if taut, so,careful, snip thechosen spotto knot a knot orhang a bell,sew a book,secure a scroll,…
The problem is the metalmarks kinetic in my belly.The problem is their tinsel wings stick in my trachea.The problem is regurgitating everything I swallow.The problem, truly, is the feeling of my empty mouth.The problem is I have nothing to say about the warsor genocide except I cannot comprehend a godwho sheds mercy on those with…
The landlord was a blind man who rattled the front grillethe first of the month—or last, can’t remember, but alwaysit woke me, the rattling for the rent, his hand like a brokenwing shoved through a hole in the grille. He was vinyl blackand just as shiny. A glossy John Crow. Eyes milky marble,unblinking stare pinning…
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