walking a rowdy street
tight grip on the leash
streetlight lays it bare
light pooling on my reach

panorama:
 the leash, in pieces

Anna in daylight,
 hands steady, calm and bright
 embracing cracked margins —
 called it love, her rite

but her fawn,
 beneath thorny shadows drawn
 the same leash condemned
 its trembling spirit wan

broken—
 yet a gift unspoken

street cries, in sight
echo through the night

civilisation ruined  yellow grass
even weeds choke  on concrete air
december light
  29 days  too bright
for a cage  in the zoo of pay gaps

i ate tradition
blind  honey-drenched
we called it sweet
we called it choice
but it was  silence
silence  we’ll torch

it was only 27 minutes
after i saw you
you said
kitchen’s your place

power for you
was a kink  dressed as culture
prejudiced not me
just fluent in the syllabus
of being dismissed

je viens d’un milieu instruit
say it again
it tastes better  than your name

whatever was fertile
you called us  hole
the rest of us
just holes for power
****-coded
nescient
background noise

you left-clicked
then ran

priest  priest
i saw you in the mirror
when i lip-serviced truth
truth-teller  from bone
no father  in my tongue

your patri-architect face
brief in my heel’s reflection
divine glitch

hey sir  mansplains-a-lot
aphrodite wept

you fear
kittens  museums
and anything that stays
from your father’s echo

god became a sermon
about control

you keep licking the wrapping
never opening the gift
you call independence
a flu

but even yellow grass
cracks cages
when wild enough
to breathe