The moon still sends its mellow light
Through the purple blackness of the night; 
The morning star is palely bright
                    Before the dawn. 

The sun still shines just as before; 
The rose still grows beside my door, 
                    But you have gone. 

The sky is blue and the robin sings; 
The butterflies dance on rainbow wings
                   Though I am sad. 

In all the earth no joy can be; 
Happiness comes no more to me, 
                   For you are dead. 

The room is dying honey and lemon rind.
Soured light. My grandmother sits in her chair

sweetening into the blue velvet. Domestic
declension is the window that never opens—

the paint peeling, dusting the sill, and inhaled.
It is an american love she lives in,

my grandmother, rigored to televangelists
and infomercials. Losing the use of her legs.

Needing to be turned like a mattress.
No one is coming for her. The dog is

asleep in the yard, Her husband,
obedient to the grease and garlic

in the cast iron, salting her
death in the wind house.

I’m sorry, could you repeat that. I’m hard of hearing.
To the cashier
To the receptionist
To the insistent man asking directions on the street

I’m sorry, I’m hard of hearing. Could you repeat that?
At the business meeting
In the writing workshop
On the phone to make a doctor’s appointment

I’m-sorry-I’m-sorry-I’m-so-sorry-I’m-hard-for-the-hearing

Repeat.

           Repeat.

Hello, my name is Sorry
To full rooms of strangers
I’m hard to hear

I vomit apologies everywhere
They fly on bat wings
towards whatever sound beckons

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry
           and repeating
                       and not hearing

Dear (again)
I regret to inform you

I       am

here

The train came with a police officer
on his gun. He shifts his weight
against the door. A flash back loads
the first time a service weapon was pulled in my face;
the second time it made me lay on the ground;
the third time it put my hands in the air; the fourth time
it pushed me against a wall; the fifth time
it told me it was just doing its job; the sixth time
it kicked my feet apart; the seventh time
it followed me home; the eighth time it grabbed my shirt collar.

Read the signs: it’s illegal to move
between cars.

Read the signs; my body knows
how Klan-rally a cop’s gun feels at eye level.

The ninth time the barrel cocked its head;
the tenth time, it told me it missed me
the last time; it said, burning black bodies is a tradition
it was raised on; the eleventh time the safety and trigger argued
through a range of black fiction. I could’ve been
any made-up one of us: Ricky or Wee-Bey
Mad Max or Tray; we all look the same under the right racism
anyway; the twelfth time it dared me to swing; the thirteenth time
I thought about it; the fourteenth time, I almost did it;
the fifteenth time, there were no cellphones; the sixteenth time
just covered badges; the seventeenth time
it searched me for the broken laws it thought I was;
the eighteenth time I assumed the position without anything
being said.