In the month of not-so-thankful thoughts
On words: a Thanksgiving thought
RAW DELIBERATION OF CIRCUMSTANCES
Once you lie a lot, it’s like second nature
NO APOLOGIES TO AMERICA ANYMORE
In preparation for fiery climates: a poem to America
Mathematics of healing: a poem to America
In our nation’s capital or America is a poem
INFINITE DESIGN OF A MOUTH, OPEN
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Why are we here if not for each other?
—Claudia Rankine, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely
We, too, can divide ourselves, it’s true. But only into flesh and a broken whisper.
—Wisława Szymbroska, view with a grain of sand
Say it again—we are spared nothing.
—Yusef Komunyakaa, I Apologize for the Eyes in My Head
At the hand of other
& of desire; how we thirst below flesh, below cortex, below pelvis; the minute ticks we hardly keep at bay; how we often inside out; how we bells struck & our music resides first in body, then in {mindful this gap}; we bounce back to ourselves, to lick our own lips & feel the weight of our own motion & emotion: jellyfish in change of water’s influence; to be at the hand of other; say this too, desire; how afferent, we, always in lead toward; how we all nerves in gather, message message & our pupils dilate us; how we all wet & longing, cell to cell.
In our bundle
When we think of sticks, do we think tree; oh bramble of me; what part of us, scatters wind, becomes home to something other; how your skinny bones in drape, mulberry limbs; oh slats of light, ribs of; & dusk always resides in chest, in fissures between lobes where all of us lie temporal & disoriented, oh this piece of; suture back; yes a question, no no an answer; how skeletal the bark of us, word & flesh; I left me for you propped against the girth of trunk; how we shed ourselves over & over: snake bundled in snake skin; once, yes, once we were one.
In fall or other shitty metaphors for depression
When silence does not exist & the mind drapes in whispers; a creeping creep; clock ticks etch the eardrum; fingers to throat; how lightening in passage; how all this electrification in your chest; cave for sear, in remembrance live, live, live; ribs swell, just before; a growing presence of plead, o-h g-o-d, syllables strung in temporal lobe; how a world smells of Marlboros & whiskey & you adverse to your own life, crawl back into your jaw; & you lug your torso around on sore hips, oh wait of frost to blanket this dead of fall.
In the light of
Light exists, then, this November light; how we yellow in the dried, in the plummet; sun, gorgeous sore, tests the pupil in constrict, lips in part more more; say alive & feel it—inside all these organs & cells, how they animate