in butterflies, in damselflies and dragons, the barest breeze of tiny wings, tickles of smaller feet across her palms. In return for such joys delivered by the universe, she traces rainbows on each thing her fingers touch. Her lover’s eyes, bare slits before her laughter, will testify to this forever, as she of his ability to summon transmutation.
She sits on her porch next to a lonely Street. It is well past the witching hour. Most are asleep with sweet dreams, not her, her nightmares are awake.
She saved all this half use chapsticks. She puts them upon her
lips because they were once upon his. She does his awkward but amazing dance moves in the kitchen because they were once his.
She sings the song he that he sang because it was heavenly and he made it his.
She takes care of their dog and the home that they built because it was once theirs. She does their inside jokes to herself like a weirdo because they were once theirs. She writes with his pens because they were once held in his hand.
She keeps the clothes he died in, the sheets he slept in, sealed in an airtight bag. So that when she is his in need, his, theirs, or her hands held; she can embody his sweet around one more time. In that moment she feels his arms around her.
Geography – Map the locations of the Red River War engagements used to drive the men, women, and children of the Comanche, Kiowa, Southern Cheyenne, and Arapaho to their breaking point
History – Write accurate biography of Geronimo, Satanta, or a Buffalo Soldier buried near them
English – Read the letters and memoirs of the people incarcerated for the crime of being Issei (or being born to Issei parents)
Physics – Calculate the force necessary to wrest migrant children from their families
Math – Calculate the reparations owed for stealing native lands to build a fort used to first launch an attempted genocide and later imprison three iterations of nonwhites
Kali never stops dancing
even when my feet are sore
Her feet never get sore
they never touch the ground
I don’t care for wallflowers
she says, taking my hand.
I am condemned by strangers.
They devote an entire day
and a lifetime
to yelling obscenities at strangers
for loving deeply and fully
in a way their book has not taught.
Children are still in cages.
No different than last year
or hundreds before.
They seem too distracted by the yelling
here and everywhere else
to remember to listen.
I wish most days that love was louder,
like the cry we all let out at birth.
The people who “care about the living,”
are picking the wrong battles.
I wish most days we could knock down
all of our walls to remember
the parts of their book worth remembering.
I’m not asking anyone
to walk on water
but we need
a loving
fucking
screaming
miracle.
How many times must we watch
shaking hands fling up to praise
their fragile broken life
and pray to a fragile broken god
because one man
misread one line
and drew another.
It has been so easy to be so angry
and then numb
to the pain of this world.
I do not wish to be
a hard,
cold,
steel woman
looking too much
like the flinch
of a white mans
triggered
trigger
finger.
I pray to that fucking book
and everything else
to be soft, to be warm
to be loved, and loving.
I pray to leave this world,
whenever… however I do,
screaming.
in the pool yelling
mom mom mom
look at this watch me
look look look look look
and to be honest
nothing Poetry is doing
is that radical
but it’s fun to watch
Poetry in the sun
with everyone else
right now Poetry
is so honest and pure
innumerable hours away
from night verses that offer
more grit and heartache
instead these chlorinated verses
sparkle as they leave the board
with a shout and a splash
rain, I pray
will bring bountiful your harvest
may it wash
(most) the grit that
could not cry away
leave you shining, new,
birthed and caught by your own two hands
reach inside through fallow & fold
blackberries
honeysuckle
volunteer tomatoes
poke &
dandelion fluff
& deep
there it is
that sharp seed of glass, polished pearlescent transformed
by fire & flood & torrential time
& pluck
I hear a whisper through the door. I see
legs before me like thick or thin
I can’t tell, logs. Not really mine.
I can’t be bothered to move my
torso, but a tan arm empties
three packs of sugar into
the coffee. I am trying to revive
myself or something.
I am a body moved
by a great force. I’m no
better no worse than the rest.
I watch my feet shadowed
black charred but cold.
Fingers on my left hand tingle.
I hear thought’s friends.
I have learned to trust my intuition
but I still crave control.
This explains why I am still awake at 3.
The grass curls itself.
