ars poetica
“Autobiography practiced in the enemy’s language has the texture of fiction.”
– Assia Djebar, Fantasia
in ohio i tell a classroom of white students a story i mean to be beautiful
about my grandfather retreating in his old age to his first tongue
in which there are no separate words for like & love once at a restaurant
meaning i think to say i would like some tomato soup repeats
to our flustered waitress i love tomato soup i love tomato soup
& the white students & the white professors like my story they think i mean it
to be comic the room balloons with their delight they are laughing
at my grandfather & it is my fault for carving tendernesses from my old life
without context parading to strangers my weak translations
now they think i am joking & lap at my every dripping word
& isn’t this why i learned this language to graduate
from my thick & pungent newness my accent & my nameless shoes to float
my hands like a conductor redirect the laughter to a body not my own
for a moment of quiet inside my traitor’s head
The Persistence of Damage
with my teeth i understand my lover’s waist
we worship at each other’s throats
i am not afraid of men only of forgiving
my father without meaning to / i am in on the joke about myself
a specter tries each our faces in turn
someone in time will be first to die
i am most afraid it will be him
i am most afraid it will be me
