Poetry

in the living room again, i cannot conjure
even the space i inhabit. rain for several

Surely you stay my certain own, you stay
obtuse. Surely your kisses were little poisons 
gripping tight my lips, my arms, mapping their way
across my unsure body. Surely, this fission

system says we’re not in charge of much else
but this. system’s [planter’s raj] & the damn 
tea. the Brits sell us, Lipton sells us, Tata 
sells us. when are we permitted to unload? 

Outside the Visitor Center—patrons queuing up in
khaki camo shorts, baseball caps, Where Big Bucks 
Lie, boxes of MoonPies wheeling by—two black 
men with rubber gloves, with Windex, on a July 
Monday, polish the bronze Lincoln.

solo, skirting the rim of our smolder, our ruin,

all lotus bud, bell-beat & drum-song, those many hands &
the severed heads they hold, masc-demonic,

Little wiener dog doing his best show horse, 
jumping one, two, three stumps in a row;
his boy is too busy scrolling to notice, but I smile 
all the way up the hill. Bitter cold

What are words when they meet the action 
of what they attempt to modify?

I wonder. Yes, I’m looking up as I say this,
I wonder if I do have a superpower. Maybe
I have more than one aspect of attraction,
this knack for drawing others in close, almost
touching me.

why she had six children,
your mother’s mother
who liked math and science,