Poetry

my friend tells me she’s been runningin the cemetery in the afternoonshe calls it just-a-garden-reallyfirst i am afraid & then i am afraideverything is cemetery & gardenmy late uncle’s flower shopmy daughter learning to fold a paper into a boatsea salt marriage dawn old french musicthis vertical line digging deeperinto my forehead every morningthat bicycle…

It could be a decade later, years of livingan accustomed, an unvigilant life. I trustmy surroundings again, like a personinstead of a witness. I could be shoppingat the grocery, choosing one of the fanciercheeses, when I bump carts with my ex,my whiteness. Oh my god, this is where you’ve gotten to, my whiteness exclaims loudas…

an apostrophe for Isamu Noguchi Is stone the opposite of dust? And if so, aren’t we stone before dust? And before that,          some kind of betwixt? The mush insidea translucent chrysalis turning cellophane-clear when, all of a sudden, you can see the          Monarchthrobbing and scratching its way into air— unlike a centipede that lays eggs, even curls…

My name is all this air and shaped soundin my mouth like an invisible mealand, most days, I tell no one howto get back home. Which way in the nightto go that will avoid the silent riverand bad neighborhoods and the trackswhich bend and groanbeneath the tiresome weight of trains.I show nobody my hands,and touch…

“From the Unsent Midnight Letters: Remission” —for L dearly beloved— you need rest but can’t seem to escapeanother quiet or not-so-quiet litany of reasons to spit the bulletof sleep          what if I perish? your worry bells over & over—: although it rings outwork? family? desire?          with time on my breath I offer the one lullaby I believebelongs…

I don’t know why I joined the white sorority.We whispered Latin passwords to each other.They wore white robes and sang to us. I don’t know where I belong.And the parties, like “Pimps and Hoes”inside a rented Laundromat with fake hickies and scars on our skin and pimp juicein pimp cups. Look at me: the only…

After he died, the mirrorsreflected everything.           The half-face of his friend          walking toward the door, his wife’s back, his sister’shands. I was there too,           suspended somewhere          in glass, briefly, indirectly— What part of me witnessedmyself newly without           my father? I tried not to look.          Cover the mirrors— Forget yourself to remember the dead.Someone show me how           to divide…

I keep a few loose threads from each membraneand loop them through a needle to sew an Xon the sleeve of your favorite black sweater. Later, we make love and you complainmy fingers burn your body. I rub my eyeswith one hand and reach for your inner ear to burn us both from the inside….

1. A marriage is a contract to be strandedon an island with one other person who retains the option to sometimesnot even talk to you. And when sometimes is all the times, it feels like you are the last twoIndians, or Browns, left on the planet, and it’s Splitsville in Cleveland. Thirty-fivewhen we left each…