Men say they know many things,
But lo’ they have taken wings, —
The arts and sciences,
And a thousand appliances,
The wind that blows
Is all that any body knows

True kindness is a pure divine affinity,
Not founded upon human consanguinity
It is a spirit, not a blood relation,
Superior to family and station

^{Zion says, “The LORD has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.” Can a 
woman forget her baby, or disown the child of her womb? Though she might 
forget, I never could forget you.—Isaiah 49:14–15} 

^{“What It’s Like to Lose Your Entire Memory.”—Cosmopolitan}

You don’t remember anything.
How I formed you in your mother’s womb;
nursed you; bathed you; taught you to talk;

led you to springs of water?
I sang your name before you were born.
I’m singing your name now.

You’re clueless as an infant.
When I tell you to shout for joy,
you hear a bicycle, or a cat.

Sometimes, memories of me come back
like children you forgot you had:
a garden; a bride; an image of  your mother,

a best friend, a brother, or a cop, or snow, or afternoon.
Whose are these? you wonder.
Then you forget, and feel forgotten,

like an infant who falls asleep
at the breast
and wakes up hungry again.

Your mother might forget you, child,
but I never forget.
Your name is engraved

on the palms of my hands.
I shower you with examples of my love—
bees and birds, librarians and life skills,

emotions, sunlight, compassion.
Nothing connects.
Every dawn, every generation,

I have to teach you again:
this is water; this is darkness;
this is a body

fitting your description;
that’s a crush;
this is an allergic reaction.

This is your anger.
This is mine.
This is me

reminding you to eat.
Turn off the stove.
Take your medication.

This is the realization
that I am yours and you are mine. This is you
forgetting.

A family spots their brother sleepwalking 
in a narrow hallway. He is cooking in his dreams, 
pretending chef, moving around a kitchen, 
screaming humbug at dried bits 
of onion powder in a spice container, and so
takes off to the grocery store,

his hands miming a driver’s 
who is having a heartfelt
conversation with a passenger
which could be any one of them. 
They are careful not to wake him 
for fear of triggering a heart attack 
or a fall down the stairs.

He bares his teeth which means he is now
a canine, most likely a pit bull; his eyes
go dark as a chimney, so he hums a little 
Scottish ballad about time.

They hope he finds his way back.
They tire of circling him and think, by all means,
continue your travels in your cardboard world. 
His wife feels ever his value
and grabs their hands and shifts when he shifts
and falls when he falls.

mr. parker, here i
meant to speak
of dust, dust
and how
even
its perniciousness
echoes
godforce thru light,

perhaps what i
am trying to say:
i’ve grown tired
of singing
the blues,
mr. parker.
all these things i be,
bubbling up; heart-thawed
for a new round of reckonings,,

still, i
am not
who i
am when i
was where i
was,,,

i
am
only
these jangling
night lights
fixed
to a spirit
pleading
for the next
break of dawn
to lay me out
sunny-side,
to thread
my sternum
through to you;
bring
you a
love you
can
hold,,,, 

i’ll build
a glass house
of these
wonders, everything clear-
cut and brilliant and
still,
sometimes,
that late-june
sun unsexes
me
whole,,,,,

i was raised reading a bible
of conditional statements

& sometimes the good book.
before bed, mom recited proverbs.

if you play with your shadow,
then it will eat you. but i never did

believe her, flipped a switch
after she turned the lights off

& left, my flashlight beaming
an O across my bedroom wall,

my fingers bending & twisting
into black foxes that escaped

into my room. i didn’t play
with my shadows. i made theater

of skepticism & let them star
in the show. but once, half-awake,

i caught them scaling the wall,
stretching into a maw. i feared

becoming their meal & screamed
for mom. what did i tell you?

i stopped playing with my shadows
& started ignoring the pastor

when he’d call superstitions the devil’s
proverbs. i still believed in God

but also my bible. my bible a game
of telephone that first rang across

the ocean or inside a sugar cane field
or in the still air after a hurricane.

my bible an insurance policy
against what God won’t cover.

my bible an instruction manual
on how to collar the uncontrollable

& teach it to come running
when i call its name

Somewhere beyond a mountain lies 
A lake the color of your eyes—
And I am mirrored like a flight 
Of swallows in that evening-light.

       Lovers eternal, side by side, 
       Closed in the elemental tide, 
       Nurture the root of every land—
       So is my hand within your hand.

Somewhere beyond an island ships 
Bear on their sails, as on your lips 
You bear and tend it from the sun,
The blossom of oblivion.

       Eternal lovers, in whom death 
       And reaching rains have mingled breath, 
       Are drawn by the same draught apart—
       So is my heart upon your heart.

Somewhere beyond a desert rolls
An ocean that is both our souls—
Where we shall come, whatever be, 
I unto you, you unto me.

Work in the early morning but at 3 A.M.
when I’m wide awake, holding you in my arms,
time is a debt that will never be forgiven us.
For whatever night is left, our bodies draping
the peeled leather couch, your head tilts up toward
mine in still sleep & I tuck in my ear to bridge
the farness of your breathing, faint & steady,
as if you were giving me flashes of your life
without words. I want there to be nothing
which exists beyond this room, save the thrush
obligato at dawn & the past that has made me
fragile enough to feel the time bend in your hold
but once my eyes map the ceiling there’s no hope
for desire to remake life in our light-shorn image.
I begin to think about all those ancient epics
where the heroes rather become infinite than fall in love,
narrowly conquering death at the expense of glimpsing
any heaven worth living for, betraying wind, staking
silver through their own humanity. For a moment I find myself
bent on one of us becoming exactly like that—undying
& indeterminate, god-renowned & never gaining, never
losing—but something pulls me back when your hand,
even in sleep, reaches a part of my neck which has a pulse
I’ve almost forgotten, lingers as if you were making
an afterlife with your touch, says we are here even
where we are gone, going, & the world means nothing.
Who cares what I have failed to become.
I will die knowing that
we lived forever.

I like seeing him sweat 
Now. I like how he leans 
On a speaker winded while 
Ralph, Johnny, Ronnie, 
Rickey, and Mike do 
The dances that made them
Their money. I like how 
Round Bobby Brown is.  
I dream rubbing his belly 
The way a bad man rubs 
A lamp desperate for 
A genie. Everyone who 
Rubs the belly of Bobby 
Brown ends up pregnant.  
Five of his seven kids live.  
I think he must be sadder 
Than I’ll ever be. You can’t 
Replace a child. But what 
Do I know? I’m no father, 
No husband. When you 
Look at me, you can’t tell
The body of someone
I loved rots like any other 
Under the Fairview 
Cemetery in Westfield, 
New Jersey. I’ve joined
The mass. We run up 
The arena steps to seats 
We won’t use. Bobby 
Sounds better than before.  
It’s as if he inherited 
A gift someone had 
To die for him to use.

Icarus, he advised,
heed the warning: don’t fly
too near the sun or sea;
stay the path.

But I mistook the sky for an iris,
and entered at the northern horizon,
where map edges blister,
and the compass wasps.

I was dutiful but unwooed
by chisel and bench, contracts
scribbled in fig sap, or watching
Ariadne ungold time.

          What awe is there
in earthen labyrinths?

Wax molds itself sublime,
shapes wings each night.
Light refracts my name in
dialect only moths comprehend.

I belong elemental, where trees
chance to become constellations,
where the bar-headed goose flies
past with the heart of a clock and

Zeus is a silver kite tethered
to Olympus by harp strings
trembling an offering.

          Of bliss? To remember
the why of it all.

Bliss is a body absconding
warp speed toward
a dwarf star whispering,
Unsee the beheld.

My fall, well, yes,
those depths matter less.
What I learned by height—
that’s the story.