I did not know what I would write this morning as the treeline
got etched in wisps of ivory blond—until I remembered
I did not get to properly grieve you. Not really, anyway. Sure,
I wrote you a poem. Sure, I teared up now and again, like I am
now when I think of everything you did and offered, but mostly,
selfishly, I miss your listening,
This One, Too, is for Traci Read More »
What would you rather hear? That six or seven
or twelve times or more I actually had ideation,
or that I walked away, instead, unharmed? That I
What You Would Rather Hear Read More »
It’s not that I shoulder a navy
pack on my disintegrating back.
It’s not that I have swallowed
the kind of pills that retch
even the rage out until
**Backpack Part II Read More »
Oh to be unconditionally loved when dead,
division dissolved by the peaceful inevitable.
Oh to the victory that made us one,
the blood of battle and repair
no longer questioned as worthwhile,
immune to “what if?” in its sad reality,
replaced by “what is” and “what was.”
*Lincoln from the Grave Read More »
I return to that Place of Peace,
and the wisdom of ancient things,
the one that reintroduced itself
The Wisdom of Ancient Things Read More »
See, you were the only Black kid in the whole damn school,
and the teacher had to split us up because of how hard
we laughed together.
This (unedited) poem won first place in a contest on The Political Poet. And while I am grateful, that’s not necessarily the important part. The important part is the way this debate spun out of control. The way citizens were encouraged to gang up on other citizens as the county turned a blind eye to hate groups and racism.
You Made Me Feel Illegal Read More »
I am not sure what is more important: to tell you how I used
to narrate my life in my mind while I walked the neighborhood
as a child? How I never moved my lips, but somehow
made more exciting that single horse farm on the corner,
the one without the palomino I imagined should have been there?
You see, after a while, you get tired of telling
the same old story again, the sad one, where you
are the interstitial animal living between grains
of ancient sand, separated from both
land and sea, by some careless hand that said
you were made to be lonely. And while I know
being a writer is solitary (how else will we ever
get these so-many-words out of our salty-sweet
minds?) I do not think anyone was made to be alone.
I called it “The Dichotomy,”
not because I knew someone
had already used the title
(that was after I wrote what I wrote)
but because I loved the word—
the way it tore itself apart
Last night was another nightmare, except this time, they attacked my brother who somehow also worked there. And while I
I kept listening to that old cassette
in the radio of my beat-up car,
the used one I had paid too much for
and financed with my soul—the voice
of a Texas woman, accent thick as my debt,
Angels in the Architecture – A Love Poem of Sorts Read More »
My dearest ones, I want to tell you
what I saw today just from looking outside at the sky: yes, it was grey, and a mist hovered about the window in shadows of condensation. And yes, a heavy fog had been gathering around my heart
This one is for the trashmen,
and all the people who have to pick up
before the sun implants itself
into the womb of daytime, disposing
of useless and discarded things through
the harshest nights.
Apologies to the Trashmen (a draft) Read More »
Dear Mrs. McGreevy,
I am sorry I was a little scared of you when I knew you were alone,
how afraid I was to kiss your cheek – you see, I could not bear
the way that rude hair on your forgotten chin would puncture
the innocence of my own, and I was so very much afraid
that your mouth had resisted its own skin, taught against the gums,
Dear Mrs. McGreevy (a draft) Read More »
Strange how dreams
and poems work,
how everything mixes
together, and some of
On Dreams and Poems Read More »
Because you wore a t-shirt with a rainbow on it, and because your earrings
looked like the ones I wore in college, oblong and shell and dangling
to your lovely thin shoulders, and a smile that invited me in that first
time we met, and because you talked to me about writing
Because You Wore a Rainbow (a draft) Read More »
Last night I dreamt of a girl,
not just any girl, she was eleven
and had long, black, pretty hair
and an innocent pale face with a little nose
and serious lips and a chin that had not seen
as many meals as she needed and her mother
didn’t want her anymore and her father had disappeared.
On Being The Other (a draft) Read More »
This is my love song to men.
And men who identify as men.
Not men who pose, snap pictures of you,
then drop you in gutters to drown
in waters they pour from the rooftop.
They called it
The Baltimore Catechism—
every doctrine has one,
but this book had a special creed
for teens: God, remind me
to obey and do what I am told,
remind me in order to be loved,
that first, I must be lovable.
Once, there,
I saw a soldier,
leaning against a barren tree,
Once, I Saw a Soldier Read More »
