this is the seventh year
i have laid awake
in the small hours of the morning,
seized with insomnia,
reliving the night you died,
knowing that a part of me
will always blame myself--
no matter what my therapist says.

this is the sixth year
i have known
i'll sleep eventually.

this is the fifth year
i can't find the right words anymore.

this is the fourth year
i was able to celebrate you
instead of merely mourn you.

this is the third year
i have had a teaching job
and had to call in sick
because i can't fall asleep until 4am
when all i can do is stare,
bleary-eyed, into the snow and stars
and ask myself why the hell
i ever went to sleep that night.

this is the second year
i've realized your voice
is fading from my mind,
and it scares me.

this is the first year
i've realized that it gets better
but no easier.

two feet on concrete
planted like cactus
needling—
     “please don’t let them **** your baby
     hell awaits you, young lady”

look at me, *****.
is my belly a moon?
is there life in my womb?
no—my body’s a tomb.

god killed my children.
he slaughtered my daughters,
he plundered my sons;
i wonder what water
my wine has become?

you hit the street
with statistics on heartbeats
while dead eggs and the dregs of unformed arms and legs
rot in my core.

hey, lady—
i wonder what special hell
god’s destined for.

I'm white.
I don't know what it's like
to have a black son
and wonder if he'll get shot
on a walk down the block
because his skin
camouflages him
into the night.

I am white.
I don't know what it is
to fear shots
from the gun barrels of the cops
hired to protect and serve
"us" from "them"
thick boots stomping the block--

cops more **** than Trayvon,
more **** than Mike,
more **** than the pre-teen
with a BB gun
robbed of his life.

I am white.
I don't know how it feels
to bleed out in the streets,
the fruit of my veins
soaking into scorched tar,
my still-open eyes seared
by the August sun.

I don't know how it feels
to lie there, dead,
an echo of ancestors
dangling from trees,
from light poles,
sunk into the Tallahatchie
with barbed wire and a cotton gin fan.

I am white.
Our history is filled with pale devils
enslaving races,
seizing lands,
killing millions--

so if someone's going to get shot,
maybe it ought to be one of us.

I remember the cinnamon pancakes that night,
when the stars hid their faces and wept for our plight,
they were crossed like two roads, like two guardians sent
to stand watch at the start, knowing how it would end.

I remember the promises-- "only one time--"
but you spoke Norwegian and I called you mine,
you soldered your fingers to my silvered waist,
I melted my metal to settle your taste.

I remember my hand on the small of your back,
you were hot like a tommy gun after attack,
all your bullets broke bones, non-ascetic assault,
but I pulled the trigger-- these wounds are my fault--

I remember your hair, glowing flame in the dark,
a beacon on nights that we snuck through the park,
I remember dead grass and cold dirt on our knees,
and the whisper of stars, and the cradle of trees,

I remember the nights that I slept in your bed,
when I should have been home, you were in me instead,
I remember the snow that seeped into my bones
on the Fridays I knew you were sleeping alone,

I remember your skin as my skeleton curved,
as it shaped to your bones, to the body it served,
I remember the leatherbound Bible you'd shun
while shouting your praises for God and his Son,

I remember contentedness, drifting to sleep,
I remember the red drink umbrellas we'd keep,
I remember your words to me: sinner's love psalms,
I remember my cheek in the cup of your palm,

I remember the makeup I left in your room,
I remember the season that ended too soon,
I remember the first time I dreaded the fall,
I remember the terror of losing it all,

I remember the way that I felt when you left
I remember that we said "it's all for the best,"
I remember the way your name filled up my chest,
I remember your necklace, a noose on my neck;

I remember its weight; I'm still wearing it, too--
I remember I wear it to remember you.

I.

our toes sift the smoke-seared carpet,
together. i watch them, twenty
white mice, burrowing into
nonexistent holes.

your toes
are next to my toes.

i can't believe you're here.

II.

still, i keep you at my throat;
still, i know the press of your lips;
still, the scar on my hip
is a magnet for your palm.

only one season has passed.

did we expect our bodies
to turn traitor
so soon?

III.

under vellux and linen,
we leave pools of heat:

every cell a sin,

we, the king and queen
of fire.

Righteous Isis,
priceless queen, rife with green
vines winding between her lungs,
around her tongue, crowned with beams
of the ancient sun, power of Ra
beneath her thumb, life-giving wife,
wild child of reptiles, pride of the Nile--

righteous Isis,
she who gives birth to heaven and earth,
sovereign sorceress, steward of words,
my ancestress, blessed with flesh, this
bright protectress, next to death with
theft of her name, maimed by insane fanatics
grasping semi-automatics aimed at

righteous Isis,
spliced into terrorist crisis
situations, sacred name on a
radical federation, used for devastation,
appropriation of my divine mother,
brothers-in-arms killing the culture
of their own nations, of past generations, of

righteous Isis,
torn from her temple by
scorned fundamentalists,
prayers to her used to take
insurgent censuses
now when i bow to my goddess,
my empress, the powers suspect I'm a member of

rightist ISIS,
who crosses off competition
with crucifixion,
lays foundations for jurisdiction
with immolation, with detonation,
decapitation of journalists, their
murderous fists taking nations,

rightist ISIS,
whose power rests on the shoulders of dread,
men obsessed with erasing the names
of every goddess we hold close, of every man
who knows Mohammed did not preach death,
of every Buddhist, every Jew, every pagan, every Hindu,
choking the breath from those who don’t believe what they do--

rightist ISIS,
you think you own the sun but not this one,
not this pristine queen who tears the thunder from the skies,
and she will strike you down with pestilent blight
she'll smite you with a blistering light,
she'll drown you and ignite the tide,
and you will die with the second rise of

righteous Isis,
whose hand rocked the cradle of civilization,
whose shrines make the sacral heart of nations,
whose each breath gives divine illumination,
who shakes off the wasted shame
and patiently waits as we chant her names--
all ten thousand in glorification.

the safety vest my rib cage calls home,
tight on my chest as i pave this road

tangerine juice in mismatched mugs
at a midnight breakfast

sunset in the dusk mirror of Pelican Lake,
tendrils of light sailing on a gust of wind

the crisp, dry fire of leaves
crowning autumn trees

my garden marigolds, rimmed in oxblood,
planted despite their toxic pollen

prescription bottles in my cabinet,
filled with pills, model of an addiction

a lace of rust, climbing trusses,
devouring steel with tender teeth


embers at the shore of my bones
in this skin, a permanent glow.