He said I must pay special attention in cars. He wasn’t, he assured me, saying that I’d be in an accident but that for two weeks some particular caution was in order, &, he said, all I really needed to do was throw the white light of Alma around any car I entered & then I’d be fine. & when I asked about Alma, he said, Oh, come on, you know Alma well. You two were together first in Egypt & then at Stonehenge, & I nodded though I’ve never been— in this life at least—to Stonehenge; then I said, Shouldn’t I always throw the white light of Alma around a car? & when he said, Well, it wouldn’t hurt, I said, What about around planes, houses? What if I throw the white light of Alma around anyone who might need protection from the reckless speed of driving or the reckless swerve & skid of the world? & the psychic opened his hands & shrugged up his shoulders. So despite your doubt or mine as to why I’d gone there, to a psychic, in—I kid you not—a town of psychics—in the first place, right now, as you read this, let me throw the white light of Alma around you & everyone you pass close to today, beloved or stranger, the grocer, the bus driver, the boy on his longboard, the lady you stand silent beside in the elevator, & also I am throwing it around anyone they care about anywhere in the spin of the world, because, we can agree that these days, everywhere, particular caution is in order &, even if unverifiable, the light of my dear sister Alma, couldn’t hurt.

Brown love is getting the pat down but not the secondary screening

and waiting after you clear to make sure the Sikh man or

the Black woman or the hijabis behind you get through



Brown love is asking the Punjabi guy working at the starbucks knockoff

if all the tea sizes are still the same price

and he says no,

it hasn’t been like that for at least four years,

but he slips you an extra tea bag without talking about it.



Brown love is the unsmiling aunty

at the disabled immigration line

barking

anything to declare? No? No? Have a good day.

and your rice, semolina, kari karo seeds and jaggary all get through

even though they are definitely from countries

where there are insects that could eat america to the ground



Brown love is texting your cousin on whatsapp asking

if she’s ever had a hard time bringing weed tincture in her carry on 



brown love is a balm

in this airport of life



where, if we can scrape up enough money

we all end up

because we all came from somewhere

and we want to go there

or we can’t go to there but we want to go to the place we went after that

where our mom still lives even though we fight

or our chosen sis is still in her rent controlled perfect apartment

where we get the luxury of things being like how we remember

we want to go to the place we used to live

and even if gentrification snatched the bakery

with the 75 cent coffee where everyone hung out all night

we can still walk the block where it was

and remember



and the thing about brown love is, nobody smiles.

nobody is friendly. nobody winks. nobody can get away with that

they’re all silently working their terrible 9 dollar an hour

food service jobs where tip jars aren’t allowed

or TSA sucks but it’s the job you can get out of the military

and nobody can get away with being outwardly loving

but we do what we can



brown love is the woman who lets your 1 pound over the 50 pound limit bag go

the angry woman who looks like your cousin

who is so tired on the american airlines customer service line

she tags your bag for checked luggage

and doesn’t say anything about a credit card, she just yells Next!

Brown love is your tired cousin who prays you all the way home

from when you get on the subway to when you land and get on another.

This is what we have

we do what we can.

Yesterday, at Shepherd and Gray, the parking lot was

filled with birds, black birds, actually grackles. It was a grackle

lot; instead of a bumper on a car, there were ten grackles, instead

of a sunroof, fifty grackles sat high, their bodies shimmers

under cheap strip mall lights as shoppers delayed their spending

to pull out phones and take shots, such spectators we were,

like that summer in July, when I was left again

to wonder who was the child and who the adult,

that Sunday evening that hung in the air like bug spray

when my father, the one who fed me and gave me his last name,

stood two stories on our family porch, every neighbor,

in all manner of dress, drawn from their homes, in the street watching.

Let me tell you how he spread his arms wide, like the man

he was before Vietnam, or before the schizophrenia.

Let me tell you how a child learns the alphabet by counting,

how she learns only 2 letters separate the words hero and heroin,

how he stood high on the ledge of a porch the child never much

liked because there was a crack in its wooden center as if the world

was waiting to open its jaws to swallow her body whole.

Let me tell you how that July evening didn’t hold death,

but instead was the preface to death. The point being he jumped.

Some will say there are worse songs to sing, others might believe it

a tragedy, but who are we to question the Gods when a man

unconcerned with the inconvenience of his presence shows up

in a parking lot winged as an army of himself? Eventually, lights

went dark in the shops and each watcher retraced their steps back home

to find their families, to rejoice over food, to laugh and settle the night;

and the birds, steadfast they stood, not quite ready for flight—