Prisoners are we,

American citizens imprisoned

For daring in the name of Democracy

To protest against the continued denial

Of the right of self-government

To twenty millions of the American people.

We lie in a dungeon

Long ago abandoned and condemned,

Just as politically we are held

Imprisoned in a subjection

Abandoned and condemned

By every other nation of English speech and spirit.

Painfully raising my head,

I look down the long row

Of gray-blanketed heaps.

Under every heap a woman,

Weak, sick, but determined,

Twenty gray fortresses of determination.

Sometimes it seems as though some puppet-player,
   A clenched claw cupping a craggy chin
Sits just beyond the border of our seeing,
   Twitching the strings with slow, sardonic grin.

We can not tell what happiness 

We might on earth possess 

If in singleness of heart 

We would strive to act a proper part. 

‘Tis true we see the effects of sin

All without and all within. 

We long may live a life in vain, 

Much good possess, but still complain. 

We may appear to other eyes, 

To be extremely rich and wise; 

But if our hearts are not right, 

Life will not be beautiful and bright. 

Oh! may our life, day by day, 

In love and duty pass away; 

And at last when our bodies die, 

We may live in that world above the sky; 

Where free from sin, death and pain, 

The good will meet and love again. 

^{After Robert Minervini’s “Improvised Garden II (Water Street)”}

more and more of my friends

are becoming parents or partners

to plants

i have lived long and short enough

to remember the homegirls who

danced non-stop until three a.m.

the moon a parabola to our party

i’ve grown up enough

to see them sing their favorite slow songs

to herbs and succulents on their windowsills

in homes they sowed from dreams

the same sister who once dug a heel into

a man’s oblique now steals thyme with me

off of suburban bushes after brunch

in my neighborhood

when a friend locked herself out—

the same person who loses wallets &

laptop chargers & saves my broken earrings

with a hot-glue gun in her backpack—

this pinay macguyver

has me breaking into her house at night

where we be tiptoeing over her

forest of planted avocado jars

into her dark room to find warmth

the one whose living room and bedroom

once resembled a flea market  

or a super fly thrift store

and sometimes ikea—

the one who let me stay

she pays full price for potters &

vases—pronounced with the short

& therefore expensive ‘a’ sound

one womxn named her garden

“grown and sexy”

bringing new meaning

to the phrase garden hoe.

another who tops burritos with

white sauce dots like queen anne’s lace

also commits the crime of eating

one half at a time, you know, meal planning

with a sweet tooth, she drinks all of her horchata

& knows how

my family loves orchids &

she brings me them for my birthday

or any other tuesday

just because.

my mentee once congratulated me with

mint & basil & lavender & rosemary—

sweet aromas gifted when i

was leaving a job that left me to rot

for another that was not  an office

with no windows, no green

the women in my life reroot

over oceans & provinces & planes to cultivate

a geography of trunks & limbs

reminding me that to decompose

is the chance to live again

my mother’s rose bushes open wide this spring

in her backyard without her

my mother’s body is buried in a plot

of other bodies without mine

isn’t a cemetery a garden

of all we’ve loved?

and isn’t a garden full

of already dead things?

those who bury their beloved

put the gentlest parts

of themselves into soil

my mother is a seed

    the first woman i cannot unplant

       cannot pull or twist back into my hands

her orchids bloom reaching

how delicately the petals hang off

their stakes like gold, glass bangles on wrists

against disco lights   against the ambiance of a food truck menu

like lip gloss    how bougainvillea spill onto sidewalks

like how the sun stays lit

during an eclipse

the flowers in my garden grow lively

& loving & hungry from pods & cinderblocks

my friends are florists

they water & cry & bloom & sleep

from loss & clay & unfolded laundry

sometimes we grow tired & tough

sometimes you have to open a cactus   to cut

pieces off so we don’t grow stuck

arranging the flowers

in my garden

is a lattice

a life lesson

on how

to grow

up.

^{After Robert Minervini’s “Improvised Garden II (Water Street)”}

more and more of my friends

are becoming parents or partners

to plants

i have lived long and short enough

to remember the homegirls who

danced non-stop until three a.m.

the moon a parabola to our party

i’ve grown up enough

to see them sing their favorite slow songs

to herbs and succulents on their windowsills

in homes they sowed from dreams

the same sister who once dug a heel into

a man’s oblique now steals thyme with me

off of suburban bushes after brunch

in my neighborhood

when a friend locked herself out—

the same person who loses wallets &

laptop chargers & saves my broken earrings

with a hot-glue gun in her backpack—

this pinay macguyver

has me breaking into her house at night

where we be tiptoeing over her

forest of planted avocado jars

into her dark room to find warmth

the one whose living room and bedroom

once resembled a flea market  

or a super fly thrift store

and sometimes ikea—

the one who let me stay

she pays full price for potters &

vases—pronounced with the short

& therefore expensive ‘a’ sound

one womxn named her garden

“grown and sexy”

bringing new meaning

to the phrase garden hoe.

another who tops burritos with

white sauce dots like queen anne’s lace

also commits the crime of eating

one half at a time, you know, meal planning

with a sweet tooth, she drinks all of her horchata

& knows how

my family loves orchids &

she brings me them for my birthday

or any other tuesday

just because.

my mentee once congratulated me with

mint & basil & lavender & rosemary—

sweet aromas gifted when i

was leaving a job that left me to rot

for another that was not  an office

with no windows, no green

the women in my life reroot

over oceans & provinces & planes to cultivate

a geography of trunks & limbs

reminding me that to decompose

is the chance to live again

my mother’s rose bushes open wide this spring

in her backyard without her

my mother’s body is buried in a plot

of other bodies without mine

isn’t a cemetery a garden

of all we’ve loved?

and isn’t a garden full

of already dead things?

those who bury their beloved

put the gentlest parts

of themselves into soil

my mother is a seed

    the first woman i cannot unplant

       cannot pull or twist back into my hands

her orchids bloom reaching

how delicately the petals hang off

their stakes like gold, glass bangles on wrists

against disco lights   against the ambiance of a food truck menu

like lip gloss    how bougainvillea spill onto sidewalks

like how the sun stays lit

during an eclipse

the flowers in my garden grow lively

& loving & hungry from pods & cinderblocks

my friends are florists

they water & cry & bloom & sleep

from loss & clay & unfolded laundry

sometimes we grow tired & tough

sometimes you have to open a cactus   to cut

pieces off so we don’t grow stuck

arranging the flowers

in my garden

is a lattice

a life lesson

on how

to grow

up.

^{For Laquan McDonald}

I think it’s quails lining the road but it's fallen Birchwood.

What look like white clouds in a grassy basin, sprinklers.

I mistake the woman walking her retriever as a pair of fawns.

Could-be animals. Unexplained weather. Maybe they see us

that way. Knowing better, the closer they get. Not quite ready to let it go.

I’m watching an old movie in one corner
of my laptop and in another the shadows
nesting in your neck, the flickering frequencies
of your sweater, and remember the Jack Nicholson
tagline in that movie we almost watched then decided
against fearing the little taser of misogyny:
You make me want to be a better person. Sometimes
the only thing I want is to say marry me
even though we both think marriage is archaic and weird
or at least for us. It’s not marry me I want to say
but rather weld with me like a net we also sit in.
Oh FaceTime face and shadow neck and the almost synced
sound of our shared watching. You have a list of things
that are going to be the death of you,
and so do I, which we cover in our debriefings.
All of this is to say that distance makes my heart go farther
into the terrain of heartfelt and I love it: how ordinarily
classifiable it is like feeling literal figurative butterflies
in your stomach. The good being fundamental.
Surprising love can happen at any part of one’s life
like the pixels deciding when to flicker into bursts.