but a century later, he was writing
just yesterday. this morning
whispers in the key of June 

Jordan, i’m ready for a moment 
she doesn’t speak to, a place 
Baraka wouldn’t recognize. 

i’m sick of looking at the world
and seeing their brutal inspirations. 
give Nikky Finney a chance to write

only memories. give Patricia Smith
nothing new to attend to. I’m tired
of writing poems to tailor 

the hem of my heroes’ grief. 
i’m seeking somewhere
our rage doesn’t rhyme. 

our children deserve our poems 
rendered senseless. 
the Black tradition is a locked room

where decades fold 
like origami around the truth
waiting for freedom unfold. 

it’s Wheatley’s fault, trapping us
in the lie she told to survive. 
‘Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land 

but it wasn’t mercy, was it? mercy 
wouldn’t have taught us English.

with love to AN and SE

‍

can’t tell if it moves
like a river or a mountain
the u-haul by the first friday
a decade that feels like a Sunday.
something about lesbians 
pleases Time, makes her brandish 
her lush tools made from silk 
and feather, crack the rock
for the sweet, secret yolk inside
to lather y’all with. so long
i thought love wasn’t for me
or i knew it wasn’t love
if it didn’t feel like Angel and Shira
if it didn’t seem kissed by the divine.
then Juan, who i knew was my husband
cause it felt like a woman
loving into the secret
girl who nest next to my heart. 
i knew my love
was for me because he felt 
like a sister, like the lady
after me in the womb, who 
shared a bed with me
and platted my hair at night 
and was hungry so i could
have bread. when he touched me
all the clocks abandoned sense
the minutes blushed and swelled. 
when we die, bring us back girls
i pray to the muses of Love, 
to the God who took
the bone from Adam
and made her first revision.

dear sister, the lonely 
you must and will know, 
cause and widow at every funeral
and you, unburiable, unending
all grief yours: your mark, your reason
your inheritance, your lick.
when the last breath – 
after the last star – 
when the last light has nowhere to land – 
no eye to wonder or wish, you. 
how lonely, how lonely
& motherless, how lonely
to be everything’s mother, 
everything’s cancer, what power, 
what a shame what a burden:
before everything came
into beginning – there were two girls
and one of you had to be Time
and one had to be everything else
one so big and one so big
she feels like nothing
one girl a thing
and one girl every change about her:
motion, rot, purpose, need
you promised to be all that
for the price of seeing your sister 
keep growing, keep dying, 
keep coming back and going away.
sister, my lonesome, wild, outside girl
lay down, close your eyes
and we’ll pretend you are still
and i’ll be what passes
without ending
without rest
without sister
after sister

to cull the future i want, i try 
to hold your tail, attempting 
control, more a wish for you 
to agree on what will happen 
inside you, or could.
so consent, i look for consent 
with you. so hope’s nudge, 
prayer’s evidence to dam
your universe wide river 
in favor of what seems good 
in my personal opinion. at times, 
my prayers sound like propaganda, 
orange birds flying out my mouth 
chirping like novels when they fly
looking for God’s door, 
ever looking, long flung satellites 
i hope to crash into heaven

                            is that where you are? 

                                                        does that make you God?

                                         whose mercy is it anyway? 

             if Time is the body of all 
                         then God is movement

                                   No

                                     if Time is movement unceasing
                          then God is purpose within chaos 

              No 

              if Time is a field
                           then God is the will to farm, the need to eat, the locusts, the lightning

                                                         Closer

                          if Time is who watches the mountains move
God is the distance between where the mountain was and is 

                             No

if Time is possibility
God is decision, no,
is surrender

                         if Time happens
                                     God is detail

                                                 if Time is random
                                     God is a hunger for pattern

                 if Time kills God does too

                 if Time comes for us all

                              God is who i begged to reason with her

unfortunately, i can’t plan the past 
nor correct its design, can’t blueprint 
a then, only trace my moves further 
into your shape i can’t sound. 
the past, just when i’ve dealt with it
there’s more of it to sort. thought 
i had you by the tail. thought i could 
find the head. thought i was the hunter
but here i am, in your belly, killed 
yet continuing. thought it was a field. R
an, planted mint, made love in the grass 
in the belly of the past, warm milk on my lips 
drying out of tense. back then, Time 
felt reigned ahead of us. i thought i rode it. 
it was in my hand. but this leather 
yanks my head – 

               these boots kicked into my side – 

                                                    the grass in my mouth –

‍

CAME IN THIS BITCH ON BUCK’S BACK, ARMED, ARMS SAWED OFF
INTO BELLS, BULLY LIKE THE SPRING’S FIRST WEED, A RAISED FINGER

CHIPPED GREEN POLISH, TELLING WINTER TO WRAP IT UP, HEAR ME
I CAME IN SINGING, THE COSMOS SUMMONED BY MY RUNS

SPACE, LAND, ALL MATTER OF MATTER, MY STEADS, I RIDE EVERYTHING
FUCK YOU THINK THE WIND IS? THAT’S MY BLOOD GRACING THEM TREES,

YOUR FACE, YOUR WORLD TURNS AND YOU KNOW ME. DEATH?
GRIEF IS HOW YOU BUILD ME AN ALTAR. LOVE, MY AMBROSIA. 

EVEN BOREDOM IS MY GOLD. THERE ARE RICHES ONLY I HAVE
THE LANGUAGE FOR: HOW IT FELT TO WATCH THAT FIRST FISH CRAWL,

A STAR’S LAST BLINK, PANGEA’S RIVERS BECOMING OCEANS.
YOU COULDN’T LAST THE PACE OF MY MEMORY. I HAVE

FLASHBACKS LONGER THAN YOUR WHOLE LIFE. AND YOU 
WANNA TALK TO ME? YOU COCKY, BRIEF ANT. I WAS

BEFORE YOUR GOD WAS. THE OLDEST IS IS MINE.
I SEE YOU FIENDIN, WANT ME TO BE YOUR MASTER? LINE 

UP. I PULLED UP IN SOMETHING EXTRA, THE DOOR GOT DOORS. 
AIN’T NO OUTSIDE ME. NOTHING OUTSIDE MY TAME, THE WHIP 

FITS ALL. OK SO I AIN’T PULL UP, YOU ARRIVED UP IN ME, TROD ME 
LIKE BACTERIA IN THE GUT, I WAS THE ROAD, THE WORLD, THE LAW, 

MY ONLY COMMAND IS MOTION. EVERYTHING YOU CONSIDER STILL 
BOWS & CRAWLS UNDER MY EYE, MY GUY. I SEE THE END 

OF EVERY MAYBE, YOU KEEP ASKING ME TO BE YOUR GOD BUT
I’M ONLY YOUR WITNESS. I DON’T TESTIFY, I SEE. REASON FLEES IN ME. 

MY LIMIT DON’T EXIST. I’M THE MEANEST GIRL. THE QUEEN &
HER BOOK, I SHE. I WRITE ALL. ALL IS WRITTEN IN ME. I OWN

EVERY TURN, YOU LEARN EVERYTHING YOU KNOW AND FORGET
IN THE LENGTH OF MY SIGH. YOUR GENERATIONS MY FLEETING

HEADACHE, MY FOOTSTEP IN THE SAND.  THERE IS NOTHING
AHEAD OF ME. YOUR PAST? MY SILK TRAIN. YOUR PRESENT?

MY SKIN. YOUR FUTURE? THE PATH CLEARED AT THE TIP OF MY NOSE.
AND WHERE I GO, EVERYTHING GOES. PSHHH. Y’ALL SOME LOYAL HOES.

when you get up to poop for the third time, i boil the water 
and float two stars of anise like little turds of prayer. 

this morning’s sex is rubbing your belly
while you describe to me the consistency of your shit 

solid, liquid, gas, broken and green, i listen
to your science, prescribe ginger, pot liquor,

rice, apples, prayer, burnt toast, i run the list down… 
fuss at you about hydration because i love you

who waters the plants, i’m here to worry
about your soil and wash our soiled drawers. 

it’s mutual. i’ve spread my cheeks often
and you love me so you confirm my hemorrhoids

remembering Tuesday’s hour in the kitchen
the lack of lube and the pain becoming glory

becoming pain again, a little irritation is just proof 
i want you around. i want you around no matter the smell. 

twice now, i’ve wiped the people who probably wiped me
who had bodies and bodies so hard to keep, 

my papa, my grandma, my man, my mother, my everyone 
who needs it –love eventually requires lifting

the leg, washing the sheets, getting into
each crevasse and around the little hole.

what a thing to become your love’s,
your parents’, your elder so suddenly

made from fine china, so wind-weak
and radiant with years – what a thing

to become their brief nurse, 
their final mother? i know

the umbilical cord is two-way street
and there are things far thicker than blood

like a vow, like gold, like shit. & i feel the crown 
of love has been placed, thank God,

on my head, too, and so i bend
towards the smell and make them feel

no shame. love is shit. love is shit
and blood and tears and milk

and soup and cash and gas and time
and time and time and calls and books

and dancing and songs and walks and chemo 
and couches and stars and medicine

and hurt and silence and so much crying
and stillness, please, stillness, and running

and the runs and Imodium AD and senna and sana
sana colita de rana and breaking what’s blocked 

and too much sleep and sleep not good 
and even the dreams ache

and all the wipes and all those creams
and all that dirt and the dirty work 

and our hands, if we’re lucky, will need good washing
our prayers smelling like dookie and soap. 

i love you, i will love you, i will love you 
when you need embarrassing help. i love you, 

will you love me? please help me 
when my body turns me loose.