I eat your face
with my tongue
because it tastes good,
and the rough
fang-like pores
take flakes of your
soft skin into my stomach;
flakes of you;
I have broken you;
I can break you;
I can take tiny pieces
of you
and digest them.

I can eat your face,
I can eat your ears,
your nose,
your mouth,
the cleft in your chin,
your *******
a whole ***,
a cheek of your ***,
a calf muscle,
your upper quadricep
your lower intestine
your right lung,
and finally
your heart.

I can **** you with my love, because I will become a monster with a belly for you.

"Hold my hand, never let go.
Be it tiring,
be it painful
still, hold me tight.
Draw me closer to our dreams,
sleep to every moment I'm awake,
color my life with rainbows
and kiss me ---
kiss me like there's no tomorrow.
Touch my nose with yours,
fill these gaps of my fingers,
sing me the melody I so long to hear
and together ---
together we'll stand from the edge of forever,
together we'll walk through the shores,
together we'll sail the ocean upon all the odds
and right now, right there
love me ---
love me like you never did", she said.

Because there is an opening
fire all over your body
the tight space in your pants
being its nexus.

Who Am I?

Well,
I must be
that ******,
the one
in the black hoodie
***** sweatpants
and an uncombed eye,
that's always wooly
scratchy,
bloodshot
with searching for
my stash spot,
that ******
in your peripherals
that you keep your eye on
because he's
not
in a polo
looking nice,
talking
"well-spoken"
and
not
a threat
to your beautiful
lily-white daughter.


Because I grew up
fixing myself
ramen noodles
and
lifting the welcome mat
after school,
I must also be
that ******
whose father wasn't
in the same house
until he was age 13,
and when I tell you that,
you weren't expecting it
because "you're not a racist."
but
you weren't surprised.


You see,
I must be
that ******,
a stand-in
for all other *******.
I must be that ******
who represents
all *******,
not because you are racist,
but because I'm the only
******
you've met
who doesn't talk like
dis, y'know whatmsayin,
and i talk like
this, do you know what I'm saying?
I must be that ******.

In order for you
to feel okay
being around me
I must be that ******
who goes to college
does the right
thing
the white thing
and gets a job
a nice little house,
a nice black wife
with a nice
new england
clear
dialect,
(what I was
trying to get at
earlier
is that ****** dialects,
by their mere intonation,
denote stupidity,
right?)
and doesn't say a word
when his white friends
make ****** jokes
or talk in a ****** dialect
mocking some Aunt Jemima
they heard at Walmart.

But,
I also must be that ******
who doesn't step out of line
and say
"WHY IS IT
THAT IN EVERY SINGLE
ENGLISH CLASS
WE READ
ONLY
TWO
BLACK AUTHORS
A SEMESTER,
AND THAT'S
ENOUGH,
JUST ENOUGH
TO KEEP THE
****** PARENTS
HAPPY."

And If I happen to be a ******,
I,
by all means,
must not be that ******
who had a white girlfriend,
and
this girlfriend
after dating
a ******,
tried to date a white guy
she liked,
and when she told him
that she had dated,
loved,
and yes,
******
a ******,
he had said back:
"I can't believe
you ****** a ******."

Then again,
I must be that ******
with the big swinging ****
able to destroy
a white girl's ******
with its pulverizing
power.

And,
please,
If I am going to be a ******
don't be the one
who writes a poem
about
having to be
that ******,
because those
kinds of *******
are being
over-sensitive,
those dashiki-wearing-*******
who think
"Da white man dis."
and "Da white man dat."

Because
I am not one of those *******
descended from the first people on earth,
your brother,

not in the ****** way,

but the familial,
species way.

Why am I even writing
this, ****** isn't a main operative
word anymore.

Search and find "******"
and
replace with
"Black Guy." That way it becomes
a joke.

Your name,
still stains my brain
like it had never been before,
you took me higher
but then again I touched the floors:
we have drifted away
(you were the one who decided),
and now, it is too late to be back
from those words you said.

Your lips,
still intertwine on my days
as you kissed goodbye,
it has been dreams faded ---
and lost with those myriad times;
you turned each night colder,
unbeknownst, and will never grow,
and chasing those memories,
somehow, is all that I can ever do.

Your eyes,
are still blinded,
that you could not see me through tears,
a broken heart from a broken smile,
and it will never be eased again;
you have thrown all the chances
far from usual things,
so what am I supposed to do
than to break down and cry?

And now,
you showed me the worst,
yet I will still miss you
throughout these lonely years,
I keep on bleeding,
keep on fixing these shattered pieces:
and I have no choice
but to accept every details found,
to understand everything
to be brave, then believe
and to chase those memories
by walking apart ---
apart from your grave.

A mother must be many things
First, she is a vessel
Faring seas not so calm

Then she is a gardener
Shining sun with her smile
Willing flowers out of the dirt
And picking out those weeds
Spreading seeds with a hope
That doesn't wither when the snow falls

Then for some time she is an acrobat
Balancing high in the air
Carrying great weight on her shoulders
Still, the audience will never
See her falter

For a while she may be a critic
Stiffly accepting nothing
But the best

But ultimately she is herself an artist
Chiseling and shaping meticulously
With gentle hands

I know
For I have been
Hauled
And tended to
And carried
And sculpted
With great skill
And love
More abundant
Than the oceans she once sailed

That moment
Our hands
Touched

Linger

Your eyes
Bashful
Looked away
Stage left

(To what?
Believe me
I've studied
The still-frame
In my mind
Ever-aging)

Then
You pulled away
As did I
Because the world is a cold place
When it's just us two

A thicket of yellow light
Shone stubbornly through the cold
Outside my window
This morning
So
(Spent as an old dollar bill)
I stumble downstairs
And build my little worlds
Which will hide in the sky
And escape into the ground
Then I
(Empty as the air in your pockets)
Lay me down
As we both begin
To forget one another

Your letter came
Did I not tell you?
It's not as if
I've housed it
(little treasure)
In the pockets of my jeans
Or as if I pull it out
All the time
Because then it'd surely
Have been aged by my eyes
Which dauntlessly would
Explore the vast landscapes of your words
And, in each one it meets,
See everything you do
And feel
Surely if this were true
It would've been softened
Into tissue paper
By edacious fingers
Who can't help themselves
Because they think they're
Touching you

I'm worried I may
Have sold
My soul
Oh, dear
Only because of the way
You make me so happy
I could scream
At any given moment
And how
In the doorway
I kissed you
Shaky as a newborn calf
And your heartbeat
Was so strong -
I could feel it
All over you
Our breathing and touch
They were so soft
I thought the air conditioning
Might blow us away

I'll always know you as I did in Rome
As lovers often do
In each other we made our homes
How quickly our love grew

You eyes were bright, so was your mind
As we laid on Roman earth
Your hair was soft, your face was kind
Kissed by Mediterranean surf

As I held them all, how big I grinned
I'd never held anything so tight
We smiled, we danced, we laughed, we sinned
Under a perfectly sleepy night

We packed our bags without a frown
Hands clasped, we flew through the air
God, they must have weighed three thousand pounds
Still, it was not much for us to bear

Soon we returned to the commonplace
Each day a xerox of the last
The days we'd stare for hours face-to-face
Had now become the past

We'd come home from work, tired and weary
A clatter of keys replaced our secret knock
Tales of co-workers are endlessly dreary
Dear, tonight I'm too tired to talk

All that would grow was the foreboding quiet
Holding, I felt you resist
As I quit smoking and you on your diet
Made only muttered words and clenched fists

Soon anything would have us screaming at each other
We'd release the anger from our hearts
Rivers for eyes, you'd call up your mother
And we'd endure cold, cold nights spent apart

Now I find you hanging from the ceiling
You found the packed bags; you thought you knew
Tears and hurt and my mind reeling
Oh dear, I was going with you

I quietly burn with what's left of my home
But the flames can't hurt if I hold you
On the bed burn two tickets to Rome
Oh dear, I was going with you

I'll always know you as I did in Rome
The way lovers seem to do
Amidst the arches and the catacombs
How quickly our love grew

Let it always be
Us beneath this tree
Brittle leaves in our hands
Are crushed forever into sand
And someday so will we

And I want you to know
I'll hold you through the snow
The treeflowers will bring
Us their fruit in the spring
So we never have to go

I promise to stay true
Like the strong wind which blew
All the leaves from your hair
They turned to dust in the air
And one day we will too

I wish
I could have been alive
that hot summer day
when that yellow dress
clung to her
by surface tension.

My mother said

they sweated alive.

Sweated
arm to arm;
elbow to elbow;
limb to wet limb;
all crowded into
Mount Morris Park
waiting to see her.

To smell her.

the tacqueria's
and fish fry's
were going
and the air was filled
with grey smoke
to make eyes sting
and noses clench.

Babies
that looked like black marbles
bobbed
to the surface of the crowd
escaping their mother's arms;
perched on shoulders
screaming
into ears
not listening for new life.

"it seemed so far off."

people fainted.
One woman
fell down beside her.

A hole opened up
to let the paramedics through.

A long ****,
where her fingers,
hanging limp from the stretcher,
slid across thighs
in the closing crevice
in her wake.

"She was old anyways."

The hole closed.

The new world
formed
in her place.

Onstage,
a yellow dress
warped
in the sun.

From the back
my mother
heard a voice
like thunder,
close thunder,
thunder
like the roar
of the universe.

Nothing else was present that day. Nothing.

Just the yellow sun
and it's yellow birth of black
spinning,
sweating skin,
and a lilting thunder
like the roar of a universe
coming from
the black earth
at the neck
of that yellow, clinging dress.

"Hello."
the thunder said.