I didn’t like animals
until I started naming them.
The intimate knowledge
of a word,
a string of syllables,
made everything safe.

Chicago I fell in love with you at first sight in May 1975.
I wore that green dress and you wore the Lake.
You were the Big Man in the Midwest.
I was 15, you were 138.
I gave you the best years of my life when I thought you had given them to me.

in a deliberate silence, there are no words really,
except those you might expect,
describing what you’re hearing to yourself.

to me they’re describing the winter white noise:

radiators, cars idling outside,

Is it at the wake of dawn,
On the front porch of a chipped Victorian,
Naïve eyes wandering above the oaks’ thinning
Hairline in the East; is it in the shadow
Of a lamp, reflecting on stars’ sacred tease,
Window shades offering the seasons?

“Stupid is as stupid does,” said Forest Gump. So true.
Like the time nine-year-old me, batting eighth,
squared around to bunt and took a Larry Broerman
fastball in the groin that dropped me to the ground,
where the coaches and umps huddled around
and unbuttoned my pants so I could breathe.

Invisible in the everyday view of my myopic mind,
The breezes blow palm fronds into
Paintbrush-stiff attention on the edges of I-95.

So rarely now do I look up
And see the lemon twist of sunlight in the trees
That I’m shocked my eyes still recognize color.

I want you to know I honor each of you, how your shadows fully cross our streets

just after dawn, how you never bend to ridicule, or to rain, how you never lower

your standards, or your arms.

This boy that I loved, my first love, named parts of me Names full of admiration Names that never addressed me Foreign names of white women

Aurora I don’t like those names

migrants call, no formality of naming, their ox or mule pulled wagons “schooners” little more than buckboards with front plank bench hand-pulled brake no suspension wood wheels wood spokes rusting iron rims sun shield metal-ribbed white canvas hoods ceaseless wind shakes

I remember being thirteen And the snow falling so completely On the windshield.

It was as if I were alone. So sudden and delicate. A single open window in which the cold light expands.

Crickets signal the need for sacrifice, a thanks for good harvest, appeasement for the war gods of winter. The frost is overdue. Near the end of October, the mosquitoes hum and bite as I still sit on the front porch.

The world is a savage place. Have you read the news today? Surveyed rural highways, An elegy to wildlife speared by cars like arrows from the crossbow? Felt life fade from the one clutched in your arms? Seen a man sink to his knees as you whisper “She’s gone”?

I loved you since I was a small child. We all did. You went to my aunt first. Then me. Initially there was a little jealousy. My aunt lavishly gave out other heirlooms to compensate. My grandfather created a special built-in place ~ a cut out in the dining room wall. You fit there perfectly.

The old canoe rests on the sand
at lake’s edge, its stern still
in the water. How many

strokes of the paddle wore away
the varnish on the gunwales?
Many. So many. And years

of sunlight and rain. Years
of snow and wind.

You sing songs to the pug in your fake Cantonese
and seem surprised when he doesn’t understand. You make coffee
a party: dark-roasted beans, gleaming French presses, and hand-thrown
mugs plucked from thrift-store shelves.

1. Here I am
His creased dress-pants hang on bony anatomy:
pelvic brim, iliac crest. Long foreleg ankles without socks.
I don’t know why a Nuer, reputed to walk for days without rest,
measuring the horizon with metronomic femurs and tibia
reminds me of my adolescent father, but he does.

Valley of the living
Valley of the dead
You call me back to my roots
Here, I can pause & look
I see
I see my people
I see me
Who am I?
I am a part of Gwembe

There will be no words,
no tributes, sonnets or verses of consolation,
borrowed from the great poets or philosophers
for an angel called up too soon.
Only the cries of infinite mourning rambles will reach the heavens.

She drowns on the sofa for two weeks. But each day she makes herself rise and wobble to the kitchen for water, a bite of toast. The blistering pain in her pneumonia-filled lungs causes her to grab the counter as if it’s an overturned boat, yet she hangs on, gasping for dear life.

اماذا أر تديي الحجاب

The clouds are filled with rain
but they do not bring rain
just like a woman
sometimes
does not bring any current
so, look again

It’s late, and I’m doing the last dishes of the day. I rinse them, swing the door down, pull out the lower rack, and then I sigh. Every time.

Someone designed this machine with a lot of thought. There is a right way to load it.

Once she’d been busy,
unapproachable,
hard to get in touch with,
too cool for the likes of me.

Now she’s here to stay,
not leaving me for a second,

I’m not going to be famous,
but my kids might remember me.

Perhaps I’ll have the luck
to kiss a child and be forgotten,
a lingering creation left upon the earth,
consumed by a mad dash to replace us all.

Tell your kids that love is essential but do not love yourself. Keep a spider inside your shoulder. Let it tuck itself there as it protects a lead ball residing in your stomach.