Jun 29, 2021
Ashes at Kande Beach, Malawi
Everything is an elegy these days, all chipped rings, / clipped wings.
Everything is an elegy these days, all chipped rings, / clipped wings.
There were two worlds then, the one we lived in and the one she invented, where my aunt remarried and nobody ever went to America
the smoke of belt burn / and nectarines and me / — I will learn to love him
there is little room for sourness, / little room for anything other than a vibrating joy
The world was a changed thing / a variant of its former self, and you were / A new ripple in the miles-deep pool of time, / that one breath strumming the tender / Chords of the system.
Dear sudden inspiration, creeping uncertainty, tiny splinter of glass, / sometimes you cannot be enough.
In a time lapse, nothing happens smoothly. / Red horns quake as they splinter / from limbs on the bottlebrush.
Do I directly benefit from the enslavement and genocide of the original people of this land? Absolutely.
To Cumin, Saffron, and Star Anise, sisters / of the roasted goat and rice ritual, daughters / of smoke and gossip, glowing and bloodwarm
I was begging / for some grandeur even if it meant / a little blood or whole limb
a rooster crows from a neighbor’s backyard / pinche gallo, Abuelo spits, looks quick / to see if i wake from the noise / of Spring
if you believe me to be your enemy know this I accept
under the dark sitting pretty / on the patch of hardwood floor / where confession / and callousness meet
