I’m Waiting for Langston Hughes to Not Be Relevant
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.
Lesbian Time
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 Time,
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
Dear Time,
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 –
Time Speaks
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.
Duty
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.