sorrow
she goes to the tanning bed
for her twenty minute session
she says she can’t feel any pain
when the ultraviolet rays penetrate her skin
i found this—-disheartening
-a dedication
Sleepy eyes and no glasses.
Nighttime backyard.
Fireflies’ fireworks,
Procreation desires,
Light the night.
Welcome to your new school. We
wear uniforms so no one will
bully each other over how much
money their parents make.
We don’t pray seven times a day. We
don’t have Bible classes — just chapel
once a week. Please wear a skirt.
No, you’re not going to hell.
We don’t use dated books with
offensive terms like “negroid,”
“mongoloid,” or “caucazoid.” No
Bible verses amidst algebraic equatons.
Welcome to your new school. Fat
girls can also be popular here. We’re
too small in numbers for cliques.
You’re out of hell.
the poet grieves
wild holiness
leaps into the mirror
too deep for violence
waiting psalm tones
tumble over words
embrace that place
behind the voice
where poet and silence
become one
Hides
her mouth
behind her hand
Because the apes around her
See
those small bones
And interpret her joy
as aggression.
Her glinting canines
a threat to their culture.
It’s a challenge.
Woman
bare your teeth.
a cousin has passed
memories and tears flow
once
we were children
playing in the back yard
slurping up watermelon
a spitting seed war
running
through cool water hose spray
summer heat
pushing us on
a cousin passes
my place in line
moves forward
one shuffled step
my brain works to rewire
assumptions
childhood fantasies
of a stationary life
the many aunts and uncles
parents too
twenty seven now two
a new order
reigns
a new position
gained
this stinging truth
tears at my heart
the passing of time
equal only to
the passing of people
such sacred moments
and loved ones too
more loved
more rare
more true
a cousin
has passed
a reminder
the time
to fully engage
to deeply live
to greatly love
to defer the line a tiny bit
is not then or later
is only right now
now is passing too
Heat lightning
illuminating the clouds
as a reflection
of a distant connection
between sky and earth
where sound
can only go so far.
It’s beautiful
but I’ve grown tired
of only seeing.
I want you to come closer,
want to feel the charge between us
want to hear your mighty thunder
as you obliterate my world of negatives,
want you to crash through me
and reverse my electricities,
want to feel rain,
not the showers I have strolled in
but the downpour of you
built up in the sky,
the pressure, your essence,
your heat.
I have my arms raised.
Strike.
My road to you is
Kentucky construction in the summer
We don’t know where it started, or when
Where it’s going, or if there’s even an end
Taking the wrong turn
Rerouting
I am trying not to be the asshole
In the big black truck
Laying on the horn when there’s
Nowhere to go
Patience is a virtue, they say
But this road work has been going
Going
Going
And I’m tiring of the wrong turns
Orange cones flying by, then crawling
The heat bouncing off them as palpable
As a heartbeat on the first date
And I’m trying to cruise the backroads
Detour
Windows down
Music up
Hair flying in the wind
Rerouting
Rerouting
This road to you,
I don’t know where it started
But I know where I want it to end
