I want to be remembered like this: taut...

"Brooklyn Roof" and "Querying"

salat to define the terms of ritual

               [adhan]

A calling, a culling, a billowing
minaret banner, a cigarette starter thrown
out a moving car window to prove a point.

I dreamed we were in a department store trying to buy you shoes.

My Brother’s Two Screams 

I heard two screams from my bedroom. Outside,
my brother had killed his best friend. That day 
the clouds stayed put. The trees swayed under 
gentle winds, but not

NAME LIKE A GIRL

I am a girl named older. I get in the way
of my own sleeping. Not being average
like that house, full of triangular
objects, where I only know two
animals, a fish and a

I tried to write a warning
                            in chaste trees and pumpkin vines:
the worst men of our lives will return 
                to us in more ways than one.

Preordained,

Chōshū

In the courtyard, 
1867. 
The last heir,

black-haired and naked
before dawn; 
winter 

starlight through the bare 
branches of the banyan 
fucking whistling—

he’s opened

here is my chest here is where I remember longing has not visited me in a long time longing who I let inside me longing who I let cut my hair with old scissors longing who feels my feet swell and

                     for virginia

I threw in an extra fuck because it’s spring

I threw in an extra fuck because the long before is here

I threw in an extra fuck because the riveting scene is

Ghosts remove fishhooks from animal bodies
in the desolation outside an empty house.

Somewhere between a fortress & forest
cicadas shed skin & leave exoskeletons

on tree barks.

i don't know how to manage time
the same way i manage my 
body

away from men
and their hands and their will and their need

to take me when i'm choosing eggs, when i'm walking
to the bus,

The predominant inquisitor of women accused of witchcraft, it is theorized, was a sadist with acousticophilia: a fetishist aroused by the infliction of pain, humiliation and their associated

I REALLY NEED TO STOP FUCKING MY FRIENDS

but o, what of the familiarity?
of known hands learning anew?
of a bad outfit thrown off like silk?
of the easy joke of it? our names
re-translated? my

Silos and Lip Gloss

We lie on the floor of your living room.
You push up to your elbow and stretch your legs.

I, on my stomach, breathe deep into hard wood.
Blissed out like teens we are drunk

The Years Dad Blamed the Breeze

Some nights I imagine Dad as the lift in a shoe or wing of a plane—
his wisdom packed with imaginary insight:   
all shadows have eyes,he'd say, stoking the embers

“and where’s the melody
to remedy the melody, the remedy to remedy the remedy” 
      -Diane Seuss 

Last ever moments of falling 
asleep with you, last 
ballooning mood & heartbeat 
so I

Macy’s Closeout Sale                                                                                                             

I am curious what newcomers think of my city,
but it is not really

CYCLE

i sit
drip blood
think i am
such a giver
(whether
i want to be
or not)
where’s your effort
your trail of crumbs
leading to
better understanding
safer sex
i love you
you

Upward Mobility

First, we push the children into their games and giggles, to insulate them from obscenities circulating in the kitchen  / Then we lose our temper, & act like masters of a new

seeds

when nothing smells like you
i let dawn-colored fruit rot in the blue bowl
spray perfume thru the air and try to touch 
myself the way you touched me

too bad we met/never met

in the bella resource center

that lesser bond girl
her name was a play on genuflect

i can be good
lowering myself to the ground
everyone says reverent but they always
mean deference

i

I leave behind a lot of empty wine bottles.
You said eat anything in the fridge and I did
right down to the last gherkin.
Unrelated: your turtle is dead.
You failed to mention it and I failed
to

One of us photographs...

the fact that i love cats...