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.
“Vow”, “Three Variations” and “November”
The doves find a spot
Of shade under a bench
And sit together, quietly
Speaking about the world
Of people and rain.
“The Unliving Louis Jackson and Living Me”, “The Clouds Are Mountains” and “Shackles”
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.”
“the poem which is the story of us”, “to R, who asked me to jump into the pool” and “of the understanding of love and other such things”
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” and “Dear White Men: Bet You Think This Poem Is About You”
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.
“Augusta Ada Lovelace, A.A.L.”, “Made Up” and “Six Hours before Performance”
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,
“Looking Forward” and “Moving In”
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,
“Horizons,” “After Reading Traveling Through Dark” and “534-1785”
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.
“Shaving”, “Chez Heaven” and “Night, My Role in It”
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.
“Sculpted Marble Midnight”, “Hidden in the Forest” and “The Lucky Men”
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,
“American Migrant”, “Inside the Wall” and “Soccer Revolution”
“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.
“The Reckoning”, “Three poems working against my smile” and “Home”
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.”
“Cartographer of Crumpled Maps”, “At a Concert, Battery Park” and “Migration”
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
“Jumpers’ Heaven”, “Exhumation” and “Who Your Brother Knew”
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.
“Slowly”, “Where the Light Is” and “Bystander”
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,
“A Girl Named”, “What the River Took” and “What’s New, What’s Left”
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.
“If This is Love”, “I Go into Her Mouth” and “In Response to Cee-Lo Green’s Analogy of Rape & Robbed Houses”
If This is Love
you love me
like a getaway car/an extra foot of rope/the single phone call/a life
jacket/what i mean
is/you love the way that i am/always ready to save you/that
i will get my hands dirty knees
bloodied
everything bruised/so you don’t have too/i don’t ask what you are willing to do for
me
“3rd Floor Up”, “3 Sides” and “The Third Time”
3rd Floor Up
The days started
getting slower and faster simultaneously.
And I lost interest.
But at the same time,
they raced and I couldn’t see them pass.