Poetry

I wish we were living
a story of desire, but
I don’t feel Odysseus 
beating out his tale
of longing at the oars

Forever you find

              your father
in other faces—

a balding head
              or beard enough
to send you following

A stifling heat—the air heavy—
and all around the loud, wet forest 
knotting the gaps in its own sound.

A peace long earned, then broken;

Cutting down Chambers St. 

my pinky toenail comes clean off.

Another little ghost 

What if each time
you caused pain
a small, round stone
was put in your pocket
pebbles for inducing
self-doubt

That one smelled 
like a Bradford pear 
you said. 

I followed the shimmer far down a road I still haven’t found 
the ending to.

I got to Heaven and I won’t believe it

’Cause nobody in Heaven’s gonna make 

A fool of me

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Only together holding hands in silence can I see what a field has done
to my mother, aunts, and uncles. 

outside the viewer,
black                         outside a mention                  of orishas and speech 
about freeing