The fish
flops
against
the
table
with its last breaths.

I forget it only “breathes” in water,
but just the same…

in my homeland little girls and
grandmothers are knotted with silk-threads
called stories
grandmothers walk nimble-footed
to the past, careful not to fall into
memory’s ditch
little girls traipse on it, tumbling
on fantasy and sport, daring
to dream

Some move through the deeper pool
without stopping while others
pause to gather strength
for the shallows ahead.
Those that make it over
the gauntlet of stones buried
by water that would not wet
a cuff thrashing their tails
mightily making waves

Rose oil, sandalwood
and lavender—poured over
honeycomb piles deep in
rumbling woods. Bare feet
missing twigs, silence heard
but for birds, and low hums of
red earth.

Cacophony of instruments rudely disrupt the silence in my ears & claim the space as their own to live and thrive. First, the saxophone with its tang & pang & variety & what is. Piano, forte, mezzopiano repeat. The tongue pitter patters on the mouthpiece, embouchure tightening its hold, showing no signs of regression yet soft and silky.

If this train car were mine, I’d hang plants from the / metal bars. I’d stain the windows—blue, yellow, / pink, blue again, green. When I ride above this / Dorchester, the orange sky will pour onto my white / curtain lace, my stacks of books, my blushing skin.

Dear Girl,
You anxious broken queer girl.
You waterfall you crystal ball your future bright and clear, Girl.
Lips painted red, head high and proud, they’ll tremble as you near, Girl.

The boats string along the seam
of green and blue waters,
white mites on a fish vein,
trailing thin proboscides
that must be bitten to succeed.

He lived a long life—a normal span of / 9 to 5 and bright eviction notices on front doors. / He would tell his wife every night before bed, / “I will wake up tomorrow and do better.”

Days like blossoms
Some, green buds
Reluctant to push away
The wooden bed frame
On which they rest

The doves find a spot
Of shade under a bench
And sit together, quietly
Speaking about the world
Of people and rain.

this poem is the story of us/
written
between two pieces of paper/
he talked about us as though
he is not one amongst us/
as far
as i’m telling the story, the talk is
about us, ie, you and me and him/

of mass shootings and love and chopsticks and bridges and warmth and cherry blossoms and expectations and acrostic poems and
m Maybe it’s naïve for me to expect the world to scream
a and shoot just because another human is shot.
s Silence is not the absence of a gunshot.
s Silence is the presence of a bulletstorm.

She walks in, seventeen and agate-pale, to view the Difference Engine No. 1 with her maman—blue taffeta, white veil, herself a fearsome intellect and bastion of social justice. Great gold instrument, steam engine structure and pipe organ height, exquisitely bewitching. Ada, intent on further knowledge,

My hair is wet and drips. Water collects
breeze-chilled
in the small of my back.
The time is half-past
bittersweet. The day ends simply
and begins. Exhausted, refreshed,

Mostly brown fields salted with white patches of snow— moist from winter’s thaw and the coming green of spring. It’s there in the going and coming of seasons, the earth swallows your fading white form as you walk away. I follow to the blue horizon wishing you would not depart.

I hate shaving. Thinking enlists in its war. The two dimensions of reflection summarize me. Foam licks my temporal chin, I confess to the razor how I’m leaving immortality behind for someone else to believe in like a dolt.

I walked through the walls of the Louvre and noticed the Hall of Sculptures was still asleep. I tiptoed in and took a deep breath. As I exhaled slowly, a springtime breeze, Winged Victory of Samothrace shook out her wings. Her marble gown,

“You came here and took the jobs our fathers built for us.” We exploit our talents in the fertile fields, in the shadows of portable toilets, in asparagus rows retching, wrapping ripped rags around numb fingers for a nightshift at the Blue Smoke Slaughterhouse.

We want fires that burn. Poems that hurt. Words that are so painstakingly blunt they break barriers. People that are so honest it brings others to their knees. Eventually, they will beg and they will plead. “Please end your statement with a period and not a dagger.”

The painted buntings used to pair among the fractured feelings neither bunting nor feeling, came to assist their harvest what was settled among the field, a Hairy bear (one that laughed) slinked in from the wilderness

Three boys, bare-backed, draped elbows over a life raft. It was a spring mid-day. A fourth propelled himself into the air drew up his knees to his chest and cracked the surface, causing his friends to shake their heads and dab at their eyes.

I wish you would take the time you need. Enter and enter again until clarity comes and you leave with all the answers. We talk of the weather to avoid talk of the things that matter,

What’s New, What’s Left I keep stray hairs, those golden lines pulled by comb and air before you question my disease, my battle and bait that I cannot shed.