It is really something when a kid who has a hard time becomes a kid who’s having a good time in no small part thanks to you throwing that kid in the air again and again on a mile long walk home from the Indian joint as her mom looks sideways at you like you don’t need to keep doing this because you’re pouring with sweat and breathing a little bit now you’re getting a good workout but because the kid laughs like a horse up there laughs like a kangaroo beating her wings against the light because she laughs like a happy little kid and when coming down and grabbing your forearm to brace herself for the time when you will drop her which you don’t and slides her hand into yours as she says for the fortieth time the fiftieth time inexhaustible her delight again again again and again and you say give me til the redbud tree or give me til the persimmon tree because she knows the trees and so quiet you almost can’t hear through her giggles she says ok til the next tree when she explodes howling yanking your arm from the socket again again all the wolves and mourning doves flying from her tiny throat and you throw her so high she lives up there in the tree for a minute she notices the ants organizing on the bark and a bumblebee carousing the little unripe persimmon in its beret she laughs and laughs as she hovers up there like a bumblebee like a hummingbird up there giggling in the light like a giddy little girl up there the world knows how to love.

          If many remedies are prescribed
          for an illness, you may be certain
          that the illness has no cure.
                              A. P. CHEKHOV
                             The Cherry Orchard

1  FROM THE NURSERY

When I was born, you waited 
behind a pile of linen in the nursery, 
and when we were alone, you lay down 
on top of me, pressing
the bile of desolation into every pore.

And from that day on 
everything under the sun and moon 
made me sad—even the yellow 
wooden beads that slid and spun 
along a spindle on my crib.

You taught me to exist without gratitude. 
You ruined my manners toward God:
"We're here simply to wait for death; 
the pleasures of earth are overrated."

I only appeared to belong to my mother, 
to live among blocks and cotton undershirts 
with snaps; among red tin lunch boxes
and report cards in ugly brown slipcases. 
I was already yours—the anti-urge, 
the mutilator of souls.


2  BOTTLES

Elavil, Ludiomil, Doxepin, 
Norpramin, Prozac, Lithium, Xanax, 
Wellbutrin, Parnate, Nardil, Zoloft. 
The coated ones smell sweet or have 
no smell; the powdery ones smell 
like the chemistry lab at school 
that made me hold my breath.



3  SUGGESTION FROM A FRIEND

You wouldn't be so depressed
if you really believed in God.



4  OFTEN

Often I go to bed as soon after dinner 
as seems adult
(I mean I try to wait for dark)
in order to push away 
from the massive pain in sleep's 
frail wicker coracle.



5  ONCE THERE WAS LIGHT

Once, in my early thirties, I saw 
that I was a speck of light in the great 
river of light that undulates through time.

I was floating with the whole 
human family. We were all colors—those 
who are living now, those who have died, 
those who are not yet born. For a few

moments I floated, completely calm, 
and I no longer hated having to exist.

Like a crow who smells hot blood 
you came flying to pull me out 
of the glowing stream.
"I'll hold you up. I never let my dear 
ones drown!" After that, I wept for days.



6  IN AND OUT

The dog searches until he finds me 
upstairs, lies down with a clatter 
of elbows, puts his head on my foot.

Sometimes the sound of his breathing 
saves my life—in and out, in 
and out; a pause, a long sigh. . . . 



7  PARDON

A piece of burned meat 
wears my clothes, speaks 
in my voice, dispatches obligations 
haltingly, or not at all.
It is tired of trying 
to be stouthearted, tired 
beyond measure.

We move on to the monoamine 
oxidase inhibitors. Day and night 
I feel as if I had drunk six cups 
of coffee, but the pain stops
abruptly. With the wonder 
and bitterness of someone pardoned 
for a crime she did not commit 
I come back to marriage and friends, 
to pink fringed hollyhocks; come back 
to my desk, books, and chair.



8  CREDO

Pharmaceutical wonders are at work 
but I believe only in this moment 
of well-being. Unholy ghost, 
you are certain to come again.

Coarse, mean, you'll put your feet 
on the coffee table, lean back, 
and turn me into someone who can't 
take the trouble to speak; someone 
who can't sleep, or who does nothing 
but sleep; can't read, or call 
for an appointment for help.

There is nothing I can do 
against your coming. 
When I awake, I am still with thee.



9  WOOD THRUSH

High on Nardil and June light 
I wake at four, 
waiting greedily for the first
note of the wood thrush. Easeful air 
presses through the screen 
with the wild, complex song 
of the bird, and I am overcome

by ordinary contentment. 
What hurt me so terribly 
all my life until this moment? 
How I love the small, swiftly 
beating heart of the bird 
singing in the great maples; 
its bright, unequivocal eye.

i read somewhere

that a group of ladybugs is called

          a loveliness. and i wonder

what the person who gave them

that name (surely someone of at least

              measurable humanity) knew,

or thought they did, about what love

—what kind, specifically—so embeds

            itself in a thing that the thing,

subsequently, becomes an embodiment

of that love: the way river breaks into current;

the way trees make forest, simply

             by standing closer to each other

than to anything else…

               …by which I mean: i need you

to tell me which of my black spots

             you find loveliest. which interruption

of my red feels most human

to the forest of your fingers; the current

            you river into touch

along my breaking skin.

Dear Beloved, Come on out into the Outside: — 
where the nightshade trumpets cry slow sap  
& celebrate. Come on Beloved. Come on out  
into this milieu of militant affection. Gather in the clearing,  
the shaded bush room, around this tree named Brother  
where the funk is sweet, warm, damp place that gives 
life. Come on. Starry-eyed swamp sugar, smelling like  
outside, sitting on your granny’s good couch, Lovemud.  
Out into this other world, where the whole body becomes  
a drum. Out here: —this ecological condition of Blackness.  
Come out of that long longed for opening, lubricated  
with spit. Dear Beloved, it’s a conspiracy of spirit: — 
it can’t be done alone. Come find me on the one 
& make it one more. Take your time but come on.  
Out into the absurd emerald universe where their eye  
can’t reach. Outside sense, where their mind can’t eat.  
We are tearing the calluses of bark from our wounds. 
We are here in the grooves of bark, dancing up musk.  
We are listening to the dehiscence  
of honeysuckle seed 
           — : break open. When the bass crawls  
up your roots and out into the night air 
our syncopated heartbeats boom together.  
I need I neeeeeeeeeeeeed: — Listen: — 
You look good Beloved. 
Feel so good. You feel like sliding  
out into dusk when it first begins.  
You feel like a heat wave, shimmering  
on skin. Uh. This fume of sorrowful smoke 
leaves me when you come closer: — 
                                                                       Goddamn Beloved, You’re so  
                                                                        soft dark night. You know  
                                                                        you’re out of sight: —

He continues to ponder
	And his wife moves next to him.
She looks.  They look at themselves 
	Looking through the fog.
She has a meeting she says in about
	Thirty minutes, he has
Something too.  But still she has
	Just stepped out of the bath
And a single drop of water
	Has curved along her breast
Down her abdomen and vialed in
	Her navel then disappeared
In crimson.  Unless they love
	Then wake in love
Who can they ever be?  Their faces bloom,
	A rain mists down, the bare
Bulb softens above the glass,
	So little light that
The hands mumble deliciously,
	That the mouth opens
Mothlike, like petals finding
	Themselves awake again
At four o'clock mid shade and sun.

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

At the funeral, his other former girlfriend gives the eulogy. I sit in the pew.

Sitting in front of me, and behind me, and also to both sides, are more other former girlfriends.

Something heartfelt shared by Ex on the Mic sets off a chorus of sniffles among the Exes in Rows. They tuck their hair behind their little ears.

There are so many different people to hate, so I keep things simple and hate everyone.

I know why he picked me, a novelty.

I wore Mary Janes and high-neck dresses and labeled the shelves “Tuna and Nuts” and “Breakfast Items, Soup.” My hair was always squeaky clean.

Now I am someone entirely new.

A black dog, a broken heart.

I revel in being more like him now.

At home, I put on my sunglasses and turn off the lights.

Sitting on the toilet where light can’t peek through, I pretend the plunger’s a white cane. My chin held too high and to the side, I run through gruesome imitations of anger, contempt, disgust, sadness, surprise.

The world will be unsettled.

I will unsettle them.

There is no magic any more,
      We meet as other people do,
You work no miracle for me
      Nor I for you.

You were the wind and I the sea—
      There is no splendor any more,
I have grown listless as the pool
      Beside the shore.

But though the pool is safe from storm
      And from the tide has found surcease,
It grows more bitter than the sea,
      For all its peace.

^{Answers crowdsourced from the author’s Instagram. Italics denote direct quotes.}

Absent parent(s) 

and the man who made me 

mistrust every man after. 

I haven’t earned it yet—

what is love if not a salary? 

The sweet treat we get 

for being demure.

It feels too selfish,

too vulgar, unladylike 

to gorge myself

on the moist cake of it. 

I’ve got bad credit, 

a prettier sibling, a rank 

history of mistakes,

each one more foul 

than the last. The timing

was all wrong. 

The timing was right 

but I was afraid 

of losing it.

I am disorganized.

My brain is broken, 

and it was stuck on something 

I thought was love.

I’ve spit out it before

just to prove that I can.

I believe I am ugly.

and in the end, 

it’s just easier this way,

familiar as a callous, 

tongued over like 

a cracked tooth:

suffering feels cleaner, 

because if I start to believe

I actually deserve love,

I’d have to find 

unacceptable all 

those incapable of 

giving it.

Her eyes were hard
And his bitter
As they sat and watched
The fire fade
From the ashes of their love. 
Then they turned
And saw the naked autumn wind 
Shake the bare autumn trees, 
And each one thought
As the cold came in—
........‘‘It might have been”........

We do not suffer much now; it is over.
We wanted to forget; we have forgotten.
We tore our hearts with healing; they are healed.

You have gained peace, you who were once a lover,
The garlands of your sacrifice are rotten;
Your garden has become a clover field.

Only at times, in intervals of quiet,
When music gravely claims the twilight air,
And melts the sinews of some bitter thong,

Your heart feels something of the stress and riot
That flung it between rapture and despair;
Something awakes that has been sleeping long.

You say: I am so strong now, I could chance
To play with these old things a while, and taste
The occult savour that I knew so well,

Yet, what was this great love,—a strange romance,
A fierce three autumns, passionately chaste,—
Youth’s customary path, no miracle.

Even that frosty thought, so fugitive,
Shows what is lost beyond all hope to gain,
And just how far from love we two have gone.

We did forget, we healed ourselves, we live,
But we have lost essential joy and pain:
We lived; we died; and having died, live on.

I’m not brave because I leave gently. It’s not mercy

when the kill lives serving self. I told my therapist

I’m through with villain portraiture but I keep leaving promises

to wilt. Even this is vanity—garden of self-importance. I’m rambling.

What I mean to say: Love is larger than declaration. & chrysanthemum

don’t thrive in starless night. Who am I to light the sky? I know, no one

loves to end any more than we live to die, but I’m learning not to clutch

the ground so fierce. To trust life is a series of orbits;

worship mercy in routine. I know this part like lost love:

gripping sheets, curling toes, tongue feels righteous but don’t fill

empty space. All hollow goings. Carving fresh cavities to become

known. Nimble fingers, sigh & sweat. Fill me full

of hope. After, glow

again fading.

Back to wilting,

gentle kill.

You up?

^{Notes from an open house}

It’s hard not to cheer for the brother 
that claims he bought weed 
from Ta-Nehisi Coates at Howard

or the hairdresser that compliments your fade 
then asks about the plastic step by the toilet, 
making you the first to introduce her to the phrase,

“Squatty Potty.”

It’s hard not to wish them luck, 
the Black buyers, when your landlord 
puts the building up for sale.

Today, 30 strangers shuffle through 
your ground floor, north-facing apartment, 
each wearing a different shade of “sorry.”

“I’m sorry to disturb you”  is followed by 
“Thank you for opening your home.” 
As if we owned the lock, the key, the hinges.

“Landlord”  is a 15th-century word

so feudalism never ended, 
it just put on a surgical mask, 
learned to take its shoes off at the door.

A man taps the walls with his knuckles, 
searching for rot. It is polite 
when he points to the paint bubbling beneath the window

and shares the diagnosis: “water damage.”

You don’t know which embarrassments 
are yours and which to give back 
by the end of the month.

Someone asks, “How’s the neighborhood?” 
And you wonder how to protect 
what you are only borrowing.

This small sliver of Oakland, 
where the children ask you your favorite animal 
and the animal becomes your name.

Where a brother plays soul music 
from his window, and that’s how Sam Cooke 
ended up at your wedding.

Maybe it’s the L.A. in you, 
Los Angeles, where your people 
owned nothing but the Fatburger between your fingers,

not even the contested colors of your block, 
that inspires you to start banging on each new stranger 
parading through your home, demanding to know,

“Where you from?”

And even though 
you are not from here or there either, 
you keep a quiet tally of their responses.

So quiet, by your window, you can hear the realtor 
discussing with a man that was just inside your kitchen 
why the rent is so low for the area.

And it’s not. But you know the sound of a hungry dog 
or the scent of an oilman determined to drill when he says, 
“You’ll get my offer by the end of the month.”

^{(In the city)}

The sun is near set 
And the tall buildings 
Become teeth 
Tearing bloodily at the sky’s throat;
The blank wall by my window
Becomes night sky over the marches 
When there is no moon, and no wind, 
And little fishes splash in the pools.

I had lit my candle to make a song for you, 
But I have forgotten it for I am very tired;
And the candle … a yellow moth …
Flutters, flutters, 
Deep in my brain. 
My song was about, ‘a foreign lady
Who was beautiful and sad, 
Who was forsaken, and who died 
A thousand years ago.’
But the cracked cup at my elbow,
With dregs of tea in it, 
Fixes my tired thought more surely 
Than the song I made for you and forgot …
That I might give you this. 

I am tired. 

I am so tired
That my soul is a great plain 
Made desolate,
And the beating of a million hearts 
Is but the whisper of night winds
Blowing across it. 

Yours is the shame and sorrow 
But the disgrace is mine; 
Your love was dark and thorough, 
Mine was the love of the sun for a flower 
He creates with his shine. 
  
I was diligent to explore you, 
Blossom you stalk by stalk, 
Till my fire of creation bore you 
Shrivelling down in the final dour 
Anguish—then I suffered a balk. 
  
I knew your pain, and it broke 
My fine, craftsman’s nerve; 
Your body quailed at my stroke, 
And my courage failed to give you the last 
Fine torture you did deserve. 
  
You are shapely, you are adorned, 
But opaque and dull in the flesh, 
Who, had I but pierced with the thorned 
Fire-threshing anguish, were fused and cast 
In a lovely illumined mesh. 
  
Like a painted window: the best 
Suffering burnt through your flesh, 
Undressed it and left it blest 
With a quivering sweet wisdom of grace: but now 
Who shall take you afresh? 
  
Now who will burn you free, 
From your body’s terrors and dross, 
Since the fire has failed in me? 
What man will stoop in your flesh to plough 
The shrieking cross? 
  
A mute, nearly beautiful thing 
Is your face, that fills me with shame 
As I see it hardening, 
Warping the perfect image of God, 
And darkening my eternal fame.