National Poetry Month: Two Poems

Nettie

The okra, right now, all heart, 
is putting on its flowers 
underneath her voice, which, 
I swear, makes the trees 
stop growing for however
many seconds she decides
to talk about how the phone
lines used to be connected,
and more particularly, 
about how she would
eavesdrop on Jeanette’s
conversations, although 
when Jeanette died, 
she had her phone line
disconnected, because 
the only person she talked 
to on the landline anymore 
was Jeanette, who called
her every single day
and lived two minutes
down the road, across
from the window I used
to crawl out of to meet 
girls who I thought 
had angels stirring 
inside them, about which 
I was probably right, 
and about which I was sorry, 
but I was under the type 
of sky that doesn’t care 
what you’re sorry for,
which is the type of sky 
I’m under now, which is 
a sky that rolls me and rolls 
me, saying look at how pure 
I am without trying, and how
I love nothing, and how 
I can never get caught.

***