Why is the moon so far away,
Why is the river so deep,
Why is poetry so deep,
Why is the sky so blue,
Why is my heart racing. . .

You say this with an odd jealousy~
It's easy being me, I am a marvel of a mountain
a giant sleeping on a hill, taking up all the space~
Write immortal poetry on my arms and people
take notes on all of the subjects I profess as truth

You say all these things as if the quantity in question
outweighs the persecution us women face around
the world, the options opting upon our forced attendance
guys like you creep in bushes and clamor you're
an incel and some of you wish you were girls

A terrible thing to be is to be me

My younger brother still fishes
when he can, when the weather
is agreeable, when he can afford
some tackle and beer for the cooler.

He sits alone on the river bank
and smokes and drinks and waits
in the shifting shade of cottonwoods
for the unmistakable pull on the line.

He fishes whether
the fish are biting
or not. He is intimate with
psychology and the placid
deceit of undisturbed water.

My brother is an angry man.

As kids, we fished
together on the dock
and killed them
with our hands.

Careful not to kneel
on scattered hooks,
we baited the lines
on our knees a foot
above brackish water.

We dropped fish heads
off the edge of the dock
and watched them float
down, almost out of sight,
settling into final stillness
only to snap back to life
(or the false throes of death)
by the white claws of *****
picking them into oblivion—
goodbye eyes,
goodbye gills,
goodbye teeth,
goodbye scales.

Brother, I don’t remember anymore:
was it triumph or merely shame
that left us shivering in the sun?

A bag full of jackets
When I first met you
All for charity
But that wasn't true.

Legs spread out
So I couldn't get through
I wouldn't have looked
At a man like you.

I gave you my number
You gave me yours too
You sent me a message
The first of a few.

You fell on hard times
Needed a chance to be new
I gave you that chance
Because that's what I do.

A room was then painted
Green stripes and blue
I gave you my keys
You kept them too.

My money was gone
My daughter too
How I wish
I'd never met you.

So Charity now
Begins with a few
Holding on tight
And starting anew.

Chasing rainbows in the dark
Nothing is perfect
For him I am perfect
Then I remember something
I never like the ****** look on his face:

The poor chap couldn’t recognize the
New double act:

The ugly poetess
Over the housetops,
Above the dry blades of the sugar cane husks
I have known fear, I have known hunger
I felt the pain of a nail wound deep in my foot
I belted out the blues like Nina Simone
An era of reform: the moments of truth,

On top of the hill, lies a village in Barbados
Acid rain, rooftop leaks on to my bed
It was a rough year:
only food sources were rice and breadfruits
We lived through it all:

It was my destiny:
To love and to hate them:
those old fruit loops

Through the eyes of a uprising poet
The curving of his pen,
Somehow, he made amends, he purge
the smoky air,
the disgusting sight of the pig pens
out of his mind

lack of personal dental hygiene,
the elders lost their teeth
Grinding down on sugarcane, while they
awaits the big meal of the day
Supper!

With innocent eyes and achy feet
I read so many books for inner peace

My stomach was empty,
but my mind was at ease
To dream big while aiming high

Marlene, Delores, and Linda
Known as the vanishing three
Migrated to North America
Where a Barefooted child
like me wasn’t supposed to be
Eventually, I know I would have followed

I have woven my feathers,
while looking upwards,
In my little corner under the old rusty galvanizes
.
At the old country shop the vanishing three mothers
told me that I wasn’t pretty enough to leave the island
Words of hatred, mere words of discomfort
I felt my wings tighten against my rib cage,
My tongue, glued against my jaws

From that day forward the poet smile against stupidity
And spitefulness, she too had come to
Eat her words, the old shopkeeper

The poetess enter another line from that era
Uncaring beauty without brains
Where are they now?

I walked with confident down that street
The misty air moist my skin
The poetess return to the Island of Barbados
Without the sugar in her blood..
.