Surely there was a river, once, but there is no river here. Only a sound of drowning in the dark between the trees. The sound of wet, and only that. Surely there was a country that I called my country, once. Before the thief who would be king made other countries of us all. Before the bright screens everywhere in which another country lives. But what is it, anyway, to live—to breathe, to act, to love, to eat? Surely there was a real earth, wild and green, here, blossoming. Land of milk and honey, once. Land of wind-swept plains and blood, then of shackles and of iron. And then the black smoke of its cities and the laying down of laws. Under which some flourished—if you call that flourishing—and from which others would have fled had there been anywhere to flee. My country, which is cruel, and which is beautiful and lost. Surely, there were notes that made a song, a pledge of birds. And not a child in any cage, no man or woman in a ditch. Surely, what we meant was to anoint some other god. One made of wind and starlight, pulsing, heart that matched the human heart. Surely that god watches us, now, one eye in the river, one eye where the river was.

there is a kind of memory that feels, somehow
suddenly, like a wound, though not always, not until
one wanders back through: the dark, damp alley the only path 
toward home—every place i have loved has forced me to leave.
and then there is memory as one might always wish: 
bejeweled, like sugar on the tongue upon reentry.
what is the name for the scent that whispers mother,
the twanged hue of evening that gestures island,
limestone, cane, spume? Flatbush, i have sauntered away
from everything that has called me kin now,
as i have before, but in what little time we have left,
let me remember you, let me remember what lay beneath
your weather—your snow-born streams, your troubled foliage. 
guinep, worship, convenience, heel and toe. old dream,
will either of us return to what we once were? to when?

^{Lynchburg, VA. Summer 2022}

They sing as they walk n’ when they walk they dance. The Blueblack women. 
They whisper bout me, up North, this green don’t exist. I don’t know 

who I was before I was a campus, maybe a forest, maybe another people’s
mother. They don’t care bout what was made of me. The Blueblack women

they grin, huff something bout the sun, the devil’s hot ass breath on their napes. 
Ask me who is you? I paint dusk the orange of their blueblack fingertips, 

that dye on their lips. That’s a pretty name ooo. I don’t see folks like them much.
When they walk about the daylight, curl up in my grass blades, groan

Damn! these hills is hilling today! It’s the sweetest curse of my name, women 
who come from flatlands, buildings that bleed no natural light. Blueblack

women greet me in the morning bluer than they were last night. They dress
in red, ripe plums. I watch them chase each other, blueblack between the pillars, 

no fear they’ll lose sight of the other. They near campfires n’ don’t burn. 
One bluer woman, smilin’ like a bunny-moon says I’ve never seen a mountain.

If I could, she’d wake up with me outside her window, glowing blue.
She’d scale my shoulder with her bare hands. I don’t know who 

I was before, maybe some ground, some unknown lists of murders.
But these blue, blue women are giggling in the green of me.