once in the splendor of death, we magnify his name
two of each for everyone. one for me & for me too. each one sliced long ways head to tail. the summer turn twenty-five a vow to only wear white this is not good, look in the camera not good at all. we move more light. the six sexes diverge when faced with a viewer. ratings rid the sins of youth. everything ruined. dresses ill-fit. the color nine . hark hear angels singing. bark bare its bone. bright, already bright, & getting brighter
stouthearted & tomorrow
could bring the joy inconceivable
or the slide of a rock down
mountain face or the very
closeness of a new god. i’ve
thought a long time we need a new
one. to paste the clay to mold, with
useful hands and no ornaments.
what makes a man is his hands, not his cock. the new god will not
have a cock. will not make babies. is
fiscally conservative with strong platform on climate
change and radical ideas about overpopulation. for
example, killing a lamb or biting a tongue. i build a temple for the
house of our lord while sleeping. paganism is a marketplace.
everyday an option. every night an opinion. every god a man’s
man or a real man or a hard-working-gun-toting-bitch-slapping
man. a man who will use blood to build or blood to build or build
to blood
Child
Sometimes I let some fresh ears fret me.
Let ill mother let me. Let the simmer-self still lit.
Sometimes I feel the fistless storm sit, mother me
of its tit. I mite kill the elk to see. I mite miss.
Sometimes I feel like a slick slit of silt. Lest I
stress, I omit, the shimmer of the milk! Sometimes
I shame the eel for its ilk. I steal the mist to stall
the rest. Roll the heel of the mess. I mite skim a
tree, loose a selfish risk, form from fish a self that
fits. Oh!
Sometimes I feel like a motherless!
Stay Black & Die
Me and Jay watch the river rise over the levy, while laughing
about spring and cum. Then walk on the train tracks holding
hands. People stay together all the time. We list names of
people from high school that are dead. Mourn them by
pressing our fingertips together. We need all our hands to
count. This is sick, I say. The moment of great suffering.
When white people know our names but not our faces. When
my hair tangles in her earring. When my ex shows us a box of
puppies abandoned by their mother. He lets us feed one milk
with a syringe. I am not sure they should eat this; everything
has to eat something. I doubt my position as an Apex
predator, yet I am slipping cow milk into a dog mouth. We
dance to ABBA in his dirty bedroom. I think about fucking out
of habit. My body is a tarp with wind blowing through;
nothing inside me is safe. Believe me, I tried to change. But
my feet do this when they walk and unless I lay down,
forever,
that is how this will be. For a long time, I was angry but now
it’s like whatever. If I could be a self myself loved, I would
have all the strength and then some. I asked my grandma what
I could do to make her happy. She told me the most we can
hope for is to stay black and die. Seems like most things are
going according to plan.
***
Author photo by Nora Claire Miller
