I want to know the words
written on her thigh
but I don’t want her to quote them.
I want to trace their looping letters
with faintest fingertip.
I want to hear what makes her laugh
because that photo is so lovely.
I want to soak within her sillage;
the impression she must leave on a room.

But this potential match
is as close as we will likely ever get
for the first line of her bio
says everything she needs to say.
Swipe left if you voted Trump!!

The year is 2022 and I’ve learned to just
not even give it a try
defending decisions made in 2016,
agonizing as they were.
It doesn’t matter what my reasoning was.
It doesn’t matter how much I’ve grown since then,
doesn’t matter how much the world has changed since then
because I shouldn’t have to hide myself anymore.
I did what I thought was best
and I won’t back down from that
even if I’m ultimately proven wrong.

But if I’m upfront with this, I’m unmatched.
If it comes out later,
then was I ever really honest with her?
Or to myself?

Maybe if we were to instead meet in person 
I’d stand a little more of a fighting chance
with us getting to know each other a little more,
discovering ways we are not so dissimilar–
not that they’d override political incompatibility
if that’s what we eventually discover.
This way, I’d at least feel
not quite so lonely and
written off by society,
like a book judged by its cover.

But that is a coin left spinning on the table.
On one side, beauty shines in uncompromised persons.
On the other lies the travesties
of unchallenged perspectives
and unchanged trajectories.

To talk to someone who will listen.

A deconstruction and refurbishing
of problematic ideas.

A safe space to figure out
when I’m in the wrong.

Ways to talk myself off the edge.

Kind words for my relationship 
so I don’t turn over a good thing.

Kind words for myself
when I can’t find any.

More paths to bring myself
into the light.

Ways to confidence when I’m feeling anything but. 

Each spring, as I plant a garden,
I put out birdseed, too,
hoping to coax in a few songbirds.
I’m rarely disappointed.
There will be robins,
cardinals and finches,
and noisy little chickadees,
maybe red winged blackbirds,
but always cooing doves.
Occasionally I’ll hear a bobwhite
calling from the shadows.
But, unless I get a visual,
any of these could be those
shy, talented mockingbirds 
testing their vocal chords and
expanding their repertoire.
But each one of these birds
likes to eat the bugs
that want to eat the food
which I am wanting
to grow in my garden.

                What black woman says these words in 1969? What white men
hate?
                What crazy ambition?  What a fight for change?
                    What a loud voice?  What real
talk?
                 Read her powerful speeches, but those recorded
                           Are transformative; therefore, yes 
valid today;
                   Not to the deaf ear, but, the more progressive,
                             Speak to the audience that listens
                    Young people, on the streets, please do not 
leave
                     Your voice, below buildings be loud not
soft;
                      Brave Protestor, don’t give up, march on,
                The battle has just begun, do not 
retreat;
                                She Unbought, Unbossed and
Unforgettable!
                            Forever shall we be in her
debt!
                            Your red, white and blue dress
                                worn on the congressional floor
proudly;
                            Your Bajan crop over headpiece
                                   worn to celebrate two finger
piece signs
                               The crowd finds you acceptable
making people
think

I wrote my first serious poem junior year of high school,
my fingers slipping across a sea of silver, striking keys 
to isolate words from the ocean of the English language. 

A few years later, the edge of my laptop screen cracked, 
and the silver keyboard sunk to the depths below my bed. 

But now, another few years later, the replacement has become 
as unresponsive and unmoving as the arctic, causing the silver
to float up from its lost void and break the surface of water. 

Even if the argentate is a liminal necessity, at least for 
this short while, this forgotten entity is reclaimed: my
wayward start is meeting my current successes and vices. 

Indeed, this piece of me is not gone but resides within—
I am only disappointed it took a loss to remind me of 
this love, of this moonlit but never blackened journey. 

You say I’m trying to evoke an emotional response like that’s a bad thing.

What the hell else should I be responding with, calligraphy and parchment?
Smoke signals? Morse code? A hearty thumbs up?

You smiled at me all day, then after lunch you wiped your mouth, pushed yourself back from the table, farted, and started cutting people’s throats.

When all the throats were cut, and you were done, you kept smiling, expecting, what, applause? 

You cut all my friends throats, and when I ask why you say, it’s inappropriate to ask that. You say, now isn’t the time. You say, have some decorum. 

Well, not to get all emotional, but you can decorum my ass, cuz they don’t accept it at the bank. My kids can’t eat decorum. Feed decorum to your AI pet, and see what it makes of it. (It won’t make anything, but it might show you this poem, and you might finally feel.)

if the sky were cotton candy, you’d be the sprinkles
that dot the air, a confetti of color.
storms of chunky cookie dough gobble you up,
tasting your inner rainbow.

black licorice and dark chocolate threaten your sweetness,
and you invent new flavors: savory, salted, smoky.
metamorphosis: black sprinkles live in the sky,
and it is so damn beautiful.

Even the rarest flower blooms
not for the eye of the passerby,
but for the quiet thrill
of her own becoming—
each petal a vow
to joy, to light,
to the rhythm of the earth.

She opens slowly,
not in haste but in hope,
stretching toward the sun
like a lover waiting
for hands that understand
the art of gentleness.

The bee, her familiar,
enters with reverence,
not to take—
but to join in the sacred exchange.
Their dance is old as time—
a brushing of breath,
a silent song of giving and becoming.

And if a lover finds her—
overcome by her wild grace—
he may reach with trembling hands,
pluck her in awe,
and lay her before another heart,
saying only:
“I saw something beautiful,
and thought of you.”