Oceans of swaying arms
Holding skateboards or coffee

Remember, passerby’s eyes
Are not the same as horizons.
I move
Like I swim
That is to say
I know how to still my body
Long enough to float.

Gospel screaming to me
Through broken headphones,
Foghorn booms
“I’ll die when I’m mother ******* ready”
“I’ll die when I’m mother ******* ready”


Remember, upturned chin,
Never to stop.
When you find
Sunken feathers that cling to pavement
In unforgiving embrace,
You will build an alter,
And continue

To move
With two feet
And no grace

my fingers work
nimble and adept

the edge of each nail grew

too quik

He says: you are challenging.

I remember as I am stopped at a green light
a woman parked in traffic
******* resting
indifferently along the edge of her window.

She wore her hair in a single knotted bun.
I flip my rear view mirror towards myself and
think how similar our reflections
must have seemed this morning.

I see this woman.
She instills confidence within each of my
greying baby hairs
too wily to be tamed by pins or other measures

Like every hair on my body
that remains too black, too think.

You are so challenging, he says through too straight teeth.

I remember the metal cage and its particular feel along my gums.

And while I hold gaze
at this perfect woman
who does not notice the rays
of sun and its mellow glow
floating above her shoulders

I move my tongue to the brim of my lips
where I still hold memories of
prayers for perfect, straight teeth in
scar tissue of a mouth
that indifferently held its position.