My New Girls,
May 15th 2015
my new girls
& i got this luv
slash affinity for
smoke & mirrors,
clasping our hands
around the circles
under our eyes..
its what she &
i & she share
in thoughts or
sensation, those
bits & bobs that i
find most pressing
@ least atm. oh!
how i feel we 3
could take the
world! it has
to do with +1
my lil Papillion!
angelic accessory
tiny toy to tease &
play w/ when 3’s
a crowd & i feel
2stoned to tell
a good joke.
i’m not gonna
show my butt 2
them tho, i’m not
ready to embrace a
viva la vulva! luv
affair, its just bc
i’m not used 2
my new girls
black & blue winter, June 1st 2015
you ache for black life
and shine of some frantic dream
your limbs
with a shock of electricity
& I could heave and sag
a tiny mother
beat away
recalling one blue summer
an eternity of a weak girl
under the cool man’s arm
untitled (the werewolf), September 7th 2015
An afternoon down Bull street
walking home with Baby Face
I notice a werewolf
outside the salon
with the woman who cuts
hair and thinks
“that turned out better than I expected.”
I criticize a business in passing, a day spa called
Narcissus, stepping on Baby Face’s anecdote
about the ironic genesis of doilies.
Tight White Jeans and Gilded Michael Kors Watch
ahead of me shoves a pink, crumpled call for entry into
everyone’s favorite Longchamp
and walks so stiffly
that Baby Face and I must conclude
she orgasms only
clitorally
and in 1200 thread count.
I think about assholes
with Picasso doodles tattooed on their inner arms
with their full wallets and satiable libidos
and slap them against what ever the fuck I am
(a wrinkle, an insult, an angel)
and hate us.
& outside Foxy, the werewolf
is smoking the American spirit,
nursing an affogato
his hair is perfect.
yawn/gasp, May 31st 2016
I yawned
into my palms
to keep polite
trying to catch it
in my fingers but
the hot air
grazed passed my grip
like heat through the bars of a vent
but I don’t worry
I know I will
gasp again.
Corner of the Kitchen,
September 22nd 2016
I dropped
three popcorn kernels
into my mouth with my head
leaning back like a reverse
Pez dispenser,
a flip top dummy,
& looking up, with
open eyes, like I never have
before, I saw the corner
of the kitchen ceiling,
three seams & a dangling
cobweb thread.
Spring Day Poem,
April 15th 2017
I want the day to dissolve
or to slither away with
wounds in its belly
like all the worms that
smash into the sidewalk
like spring-come jam, a
little gore that gouged my
sympathies when I was
a baby girl.
Perfect Naturalizing
Narcissus Mates, May 28th 2017
Perfect naturalizing narcissus mates
look into each other’s eyes
over a local disembodied laugh
hitting the angles outside and the soft balmy
end-of-May evening air
in soft echoes like waking up to
your sleeping tan body that may as well
have been sleeping in any story but
luckily it was sleeping in ours while the
rain made for gray and green pinstripes
in the end-of-May morning air
a sound so level, we fall back asleep
my mouth open and your mouth closed
then later we will kiss again
Poem for Stupid Desire, May 4th 2018
when the sky is on I won’t think about
the squeeze of your denim while you
sit on the busted stool and bob your sulking body
to the bounce and hit.
it doesn’t get better because I don’t know what I want
but sometimes I don’t want anything &
I certainly don’t question.
when you tell me something stupid or
cinch my heart when I remember you
are a soundwave
and I am a spider
and people don’t write music for anyone but themselves.
I don’t find you perfect when I smell your week
across the room, but I don’t find you awful
when you act like a baby
I just remember you asking to be the little spoon
then the past
is a gift not a loss.
Alone Alive or Dying, August 7th 2019
Eagle Beach, Aruba, Mid morning
Colored ocean, a shade I haven’t
seen, swells onto the palms
of my feet as shadow fronds
wave ghostly fingers
through the sand & in the hair
or across the cheek of
my resting lover.
While looking out
over indigo meets turquoise,
I feel the curiosity & joy
surge from a pent up
winter place.
& I marvel
eyes on clouds meets crests
& horizon in the future,
who now, on this island,
is dying & is it really awful?
Porch break between classes,
February 11th 2020
mid-afternoon choral practice
concludes & only the stray coo or
chirp flits through the twists & valleys
of the neighborhood
disembodied trills bouncing off
the asphalt from the sky
the humid air reminds mid-February
minds of the body coming with
Georgia Summer
corporeal humidity smells like
my best friend’s apartment in April
Manhattan
old, life giving, like lunch & socks off
like bodies & differences
a neighbor walks by, across the lawn
of our triplex as I wax
southern on the porch
in invisible currents his freshly showered
& deodorized odor mixed with his last
cigarette dance towards me
a faraway siren sounds & sells me
the promise that for now, right here
I am safe, this is home, I am
happy in the palm of Atlanta’s hand