Poetry

owl


it said you would

die

to me

inevitably

i must set you free

whether to another's arms

or to seasoned soil

my love is surrender

for to love is to die forever.

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movement

watch me...

when i'm elated, i explode.

when i'm livid, i implode.

when i'm afraid, i collapse.

when i'm justified, i inflate.

when i'm sensuous, i dance.

when i'm grieved, i pace.

when i'm in love, i make love.

when i love, i embrace.

saying what i mean is harder than writing it to you,

so let me move around you.

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ivory, after william carlos williams' "The Red Wheelbarrow"

so much depends upon

the feeders and planters and givers that sleep on

long grains that stood filtering blue harvest light

onto fescue and shed

wheat and barley and seed in a trough;

roosters that start rural ritual from hazy dawn,

white hens' smooth ovals of ivory and brown

cracked for sustenance

or treasured for the sake of dependence

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donuts at balboa street laundry

on sundays we walk to the laundromat

and you buy me melting glazed donuts

and milk with a straw to keep me calm

while I sit on my favorite beige dryer

bouncing my jelly sandals against the vibrating metal.

while you crouch in the corner with your nursing books

and vacantly rub your lashes,

wishing that the sound of the dryer

were only a whir in the basement

and that you could brush the bangs from my eyes

while we eat donuts together at the kitchen table,

i wish that daddy could’ve seen how pretty you are with rainbow lint in your hair,

and that the warmth at my bottom never goes away

and that you never forget how to kiss the crusted sugar on my lips.

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middle passage, after "Middle Passage" by countee cullen

it said “Go back to Africa” in red ink

on the way to her shores my feet tangle

and that night I did.

in scum-covered shackles on the ocean floor. 

i did after throwing the red brick back out through the shards

in languages I have never heard

and wiped my daddy’s bloody head

pale ghosts in the air howl on hovering phantom rigs,

obscuring my Polaris.

and put out the flames on our lawn

coiling rope, alive and writhing fades at her brink. 

and stopped baby brother from crying

foam in the surf wraps around my ankles.

and told Big Ma to stop screaming

the multitude of tribes before me stand.

in their faces nothing my own and

everything my own.

in my face, all of Africa.

and pulled the rough twinning from the tree…

in French and English, German,

they each take their turn,

and tell me to go home.

i did.

*Artwork by Tom Feelings (May 19, 1933 - August 25, 2003)

building the line

"chain ten more," nanny says as we sit,

and i watch as her hands

single crochet, double, treble, popcorn and

cluster stitch lifeless yarn into lustrous intricate design.

watching is how cousin and i learn to know it, as did my aunties

and mama as well.

we are learning to grow with her on our shoulders.

small, damp fingers fumbling with sticky wool

until they move steady and the string flows like water through my palms.

when i have one-hundred chains

i teach cousin how to chain

and we sit quietly as time grows on

she, watching my hands

i, watching nanny's hands

as we slowly build her up.

eleven shades of a black girl

against the heated sands of a southern beach,

she is bronze.

and in the shade of a summer tree,

she is cinnamon.

with gardenia petals in her midnight hair,

she is honey.

and with white roses in caramel palms

she is chocolate.

when the falling leaves of autumn lay against her legs,

she is almond butter.

and by the glowing blaze of a winter fire,

she is coffee.

by the light of morning's rays,

she is brown sugar

and by the pale moonlight of night,

she shines toffee.

and when the moon is new,

her silhouette is black

against the radiant stars.

isabel, daughter of abra

the space in time won't thwart your aging cries,

her flesh, like fire, it seemed a sin to hold.

and though your hearth in embers ever dies,

your babe remained unguarded in the cold.

your daughter's cinders grew and flamed in anger,

forever veiling frost too chill to bear.

and now to her you will remain a stranger,

begging Him to spare her in your prayers.

He says you must see Him before your child,

so her His way you showed as best you could.

but her soul remained as dang'rous as the Wild,

so you to her will stay misunderstood.

His path you step to enlighten all mankind,

the one you cherish most forever blind.

already sleeping

daughter,

i am jealous

of your beating heart

for you say i have none

and that is why i am awake

standing at the foot of your bed

and you are already sleeping

fighting me in your dreams

your heartbeat keeps me awake

at night

it pounds, gently until the darkness

shakes with it

and i watch you, jealous

my old feet, cold on your mahogany floor,

jealous

because you sleep at night

without knowing that i have none

because i gave it away, for you.

Published in Volume 49, Edition 1 of Crosscurrents Literary Review