I. To Those Who Died
If I had a glass to raise
I'd pour champagne on
Mass graves,
Shelves of skeletons,
Skulls in single layers filling
Church basements,
And soil in the coutryside
Where the burial sites
Have not yet been
Unearthed.
I'd give bubbly to the bones
Of those who died
Before their first taste.
To those who died,
Because they owned ten cows or more
And had milk with their meals
While neighbors drank water.
To those who died,
Because they didn't have enough
Banana wine
For bribes
To save their lives.
To those who died,
Because they didn't have enough
Time to hide.
Because they hadn't lied
About their father's tribe.
To those who died,
Because they wouldn't confide
Where their killers could find
Cockroaches on that hillside,
Neighbors who'd run before dawn,
Their cattle, grazing in hiding, and
Where their children had gone.
To those who died, for being
The taller man
The longer nose
The leaner build
The lighter skin,
The more beautiful women.
I'd toast to those who died.
II. To Those Who Survived
If I had a glass to raise
Of champagne,
I'd toast to those
Sitting around this table
Sixteen years later.
"Here's to being alive!"
A toast to those who survived.
Jun 19, 2010
Jun 19, 2010 at 9:09 PM UTC
Old age in the cities
Vanished
In the beginning.
Stopped for proof of identity
Shot along the roads
Leading from the country.
And the young ones?
Left to flee.
Old age in the villages
Cut down slowly
By machete
Carving women into widows.
And the young ones?
Run past piled bodies.
Old age on the hillsides
Hides under banana leaves
Waiting to run at night
Dying during daylight
From hunger, thirst, and fear
For the young ones?
Wondering when old age disappears.
Jun 19, 2010
Jun 19, 2010 at 8:53 PM UTC
Leaning over your desk, staring at calculus
I learned to solve at sixteen.
I’ll direct you to the nearest solution-
You have one hour left to reach, but
Have gotten too lost to see-
If you stop to ask me.
But you won’t, so
I won’t wait.
You don’t, and
I say nothing.
Kissing slightly,
Along your t-shirt’s edge, I leave
My mouth shut
And your neck wet.
Sheets of computer paper and
Snapped mechanical pencil tips
Sprinkled with eraser bits,
Cover the floor around your feet.
You punch your calculator keys while beneath your desk
I'm on my knees.
Jun 15, 2010
Jun 15, 2010 at 12:05 AM UTC
A man of twenty
Looks much younger
Waiting at the southside bus station in a
Suit and sneakers,
Hat strings
Dangling into his collar,
Anxious with his hands idle.
A man holding my bags and waist
On a subway train that
Shakes our bodies closer
Looks his age and older,
Holding us still.
Jun 12, 2010
Jun 12, 2010 at 4:27 PM UTC
The first week of the new year was
Sleeping in past two,
Sleeping in my birthday suit,
in my boyfriend's bed,
in his childhood room.
Jun 12, 2010
Jun 12, 2010 at 4:06 PM UTC
My grandmother's hands, dressed in
Sterling silver bands
And stacked bangles
Making music
When she salts
Slices of ham
Jun 12, 2010
Jun 12, 2010 at 4:00 PM UTC
I. Our First Time
We road tripped to new lives - together
Unsteady
On the highway
In the high winds
Whinneying
Space between
Windows and their
Worn seals,
Keeping our silence
Secret
II. Talk About Religion
This Athiest said
True love
IS his God;
Finally
I know
I don't believe in it.
III. Studio Apartment
On Lia Jade's
Slick hardwood kitchen
Floor, in the dark,
I think more than I write
And put the notebook down
For a one-woman sit-in
On my first night in Boston.
Jun 11, 2010
Jun 11, 2010 at 11:28 PM UTC
I Want to
Wake up to
My favorite band and your hand
Between my thighs.
I want
Your middle finger,
Cold and steady,
Pushing inside to open my eyes.
I want a fifteen minute
forceful kiss; You
Rolling me over
With your lips.
I want
All ten of your fingertips
To draw me a pretty picture.
I want you–
When you see
My fingers spread,
Like my toes before curling,
Or my trembling legs-
To pull my thighs
Away from center,
Pushing each farther
From the other.
Like one bed
With two angry lovers,
Hugging its opposite edges;
Your hand in the space between them.
Jun 11, 2010
Jun 11, 2010 at 11:13 PM UTC
Sun leaks through bullet holes in the sheet-tin ceiling,
Sprinkling light on dead mens' clothing
Piled stiff with dried blood and dust of fifteen years.
What does it mean when the stained glass windows
Left intact
Let in less light to this church
Than the small holes in its brick walls
Made by grenades
Thrown from the hands of its priests?
What does is mean when the left overs of dead believers are
Speckled the holy white color of
Bird ****
That drips
From the bullet holes above?
Nearing the aisle's end,
I feel an urge to touch
What I don't believe I see
And look more closely.
Tangled human hairs, crusted blood,
Loose threads torn from hand-stitched hems, in shreds,
And insects nesting in the decay of the dead.
I recoil and suddenly, reach...
Jun 11, 2010
Jun 11, 2010 at 10:42 PM UTC
The tour guide asks
If I'd like to photograph
The bullet hole
In his forehead.
He was one of six survivors and
Gives white people tours five days a week
Of the forty thousand dead,
Pointing out his baby brother's bones,
His mother's skirt,
His lover's toes.
This survivor knows.
With a bullet to the head
He escaped death,
But not the days he lived
Piled amongst the dead.
Standing still and silent,
I respond only in smiling
To his insistence I take pictures
Of tragedy's remaining pieces and
Strangers' screaming skeletons.
Take more, he tells me, always.
A smile, one arm folded formally behind his back,
The other pointing from bone to bone.
I hold my camera to my eyes,
Pretend to press a button every few seconds
While following behind.
I can not take anything from a place already *****
Except for this man and the bullet he carries,
Nothing is left.
Here, I can not take photographs.
Jun 11, 2010
Jun 11, 2010 at 10:11 PM UTC