Poetry
Between Practice
1. Afternoons in Florida while my favorite jocular jockish cousin suffered summer school, I climbed the tall hot fence of the elementary school behind his house to practice layups and dream of dunks. 2. I was 13, my mother was on a Caribbean cruise ship in a state of longing, her husband was on a …
Race/Race
stock strain family line breed blood skin shape of the head of the pack animal human judge better fitter swiftly to find foot horse car run for your life around town the block the camp to the top the finish contend compete in for against the other the not so great not even in …
This Black Southern Poor Boy’s Blues
I’m no choir boy, nopreacher’s son. Fasting is never doneon purpose. Gin or thighs helps me sleepand both make me forget me for a moment.Most nights she tells me she loves me,others blanket us in silence, when even our orgasmsdon’t speak. I like Saturday night fixes,whatever Johnny brings back from New York City. I’m no …
luam & the flies
umbertide, asmera, new york, october, 2013 It was the end of the world.The world was ending. I sat in my house with the flies. Thoughthe night was dense, was long, we tried to wait for light, to last.But the wind at the doors. & darkness knuckled, flashed its teeth.Outside, the other houses, outside, the solitaryfield, …
Elegy for My Mother’s Mind
When I steady your step on the stairs, you ask not once but twicewhere we’re going—to the car, to the store, Mom, remember? You laugh and say you thought we’d be walking and we are,right into the part of your brain where you’ll lose me, lose the child who picked all 43 tulips you waited …
To a Rosh Hashanah Challah
Sweet bread, stern in youreternal roundness, I sneak piecesof your crust at midnight— for isn’t yours the sacredcircle that we want for asweet new year? The baker infused youwith honey to make us happy,& maybe her kitchen miracle will work: sugar the bitter, renewour sour apples in an orchardthat greens the table. Sweet challah, you’re …
Dove
bichwa ke mare ordhniya ke torde,tohar najariya jaherile jaherile. A scorpion stings me, its toxins swim my veins,one ill prick from you and I writhe in your fever. I dream I cough up a songbird I release to the sky,you board a plane to take you across the desert. I will tie messages to the …
Prayer Book for Vanishing
Anything black nuh good.Jamaican Patois Maxim White mirror of morning,the body is yours. Yours the faceto anoint with Epsom salts, clean teaspoon of bleachaside in the decanter.What holy water. Approach the angelsto efface this blackness,another tar baby, self I am scorching. In the nightfind nothing but a dagger of teeth.Pitch-black marrow, vile pigment unwanted,set fire …
A Mother Near the West Virginia Line Considers Public Health
The industry thinks I’m too dumb to back down; they don’t knowI do this for my mom and dad. They were 69 and 71. He had pulmonary fibrosis, worked with asbestos all his life. She grew upnear the coke ovens back when kids were sent into the mines to pick coal. So they both had …