I steer the moon over my right shoulder, vertebrae
lodged above coyote ridge, winding plains road
I drive all the night’s hungers down. White light
clasping the devil’s backbone. Today snow

love does not begin and end the way we think it does. love is a battle; love is a war; love is a growing up
      -James Baldwin

when i say
I love my family
what i mean
is i worship
the

My brain’s a sponge: once
I slept with a playing card beneath
my pillow to stain my thoughts
bright red. Let’s not dwell too long
on the times I snuck juice and vodka
and postured for the

to survive
tenacious teeth held their nerve

1. And what does it mean to witness yourself, on television, dying?

            a. I no longer watch the news.
            b. I’ve exhausted every mirror in my home searching for my

so much of what I feel is strain and restraint, not
strength. I feel so much of my days are in want;

Here We Are in Infinite Joy

“People dance to say, I am alive and in my body.
I am black alive and looking back at you.”
                         - Elizabeth Alexander, “The Trayvon

after K Ming Chang

Late June, during the spider lily harvest,

            Meng Po sutures shut my skin

as soup marbles under. A broth that weathers

            me a body for the

Chacka

This Whole Foods smells of rot.
A lady holds half a jackfruit like a baby,
Pushes her fingers deep into the damp decay. 

We call jackfruit chacka back home (although who’s we?
I

Election Night at the Stud

On the dance floor,
               my fingertip traces his infinity tattoo

and I wish more things were uncountable,
                            although cruelty

Shrine

In the market, Rayanne arranges
breadfruit and guava on her stand.
She frames them with squat pumpkins
and green hooks of plantain. She
leans against her stool to stretch her
legs,

Tropic of Cancer

for Lawrence Stewen

On this shore, the insects scheme, sing
the hair along my body. I say I dream about

strolling where the moonlight hits the water
and disturbs it,

I was God’s favorite, once—enough
schoolgirl in me to make Mary
sweat. not a fall-from-grace, but something sweeter.
an unlit cigarette wedged between two
adolescent fingers; & the skin like

HOOD

We jut Ma’at into our daily bread.
Turn mud into pyramid bricks,
shadows mapping the heavens.
We rise above the stars.
Invent language harmonious
with all creation.
Fight wars because

PROEMNAL

1.

On’s on.

Storm in summer so awed.

Storm in summer so the awning.

Gum rubber space slowing
to show me it’s one big skin
sweating and leaking into
all over me.

I don’t

YOUR POMPEII

It’s fire season and I want to be a better god; to be your pompeii
but one morning I was not myself. I will tell you a secret-
I will tell you what the arsonist told me as he struck

THE LOOKOUT

A person looks out onto the ocean. The water does not look like it is moving. Is it a real ocean? How are we to decide? There is something small and very far away. The person cannot

Skincare for Trees

Take care of your skin she says, over the dinner table,
tracing lines on the table with thin long fingernails,                                                                 

Gentian Violet

For years I lied
          to everyone
                  said gentian was related
                                             to violet
                  I don’t know why

MORNING

As a child I was taught
the small gathering of matter:

in the garage of summer,
a shelf of conch shells

flat yellow saddle oysters layered in jars,
small change purses of cicada

not the man

you should have fucked
the forest, not the man

the ravine holds secrets
not him

not him
secrets hold the ravine

not the man, the forest
you should have fucked

easy come,

My favorite period historically

has been the interim period

Desert Dance

I didn’t believe tumbleweeds were real until I saw one
just like ghosts or gods or anything: I’ll believe it when I see it.
Somewhere I fused leaving & searching into the same