Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle
That while you watched turned to pieces of snow
Riding a gradient invisible
From silver aslant to random, white, and slow.

There came a moment that you couldn’t tell.
And then they clearly flew instead of fell.

Odd how you entered my house quietly,
Quietly left again.
While you stayed you ate at my table,
Slept in my bed.
There was much sweetness,
Yet little was done, little said.
After you left there was pain,
Now there is no more pain.

But the door of a certain room in my house
Will be always shut.
Your fork, your plate, the glass you drank from,
The music you played,
Are in that room
With the pillow where last your head was laid.
And there is one place in my garden
Where it’s best that I set no foot.

Did she know
there was more to life
than lions licking the furred
ears of lambs,
fruit trees dropping
their fat bounty,
the years droning on
without argument?

Too much quiet
is never a good sign.
Isn’t there always
something itching
beneath the surface?

But what could she say?
The larder was full
and they were beautiful,
their bodies new
as the day they were made.

Each morning the same
flowers broke through
the rich soil, the birds sang,
again, in perfect pitch.

It was only at night,
when they lay together in the dark
that it was almost palpable—
the vague sadness, unnamed.

Foolishness, betrayal,
—call it what you will. What a relief
to feel the weight
fall into her palm. And after,
not to pretend anymore
that the terrible calm
was Paradise.

It is easy to erase it—a touch of the delete key on this keyboard. Barely moving my finger. Versus how much intention it took to use the eraser on a pencil, to flip the pencil around my thumb and scrub out the lead etched on the paper.

Stone and rain laugh at me. The amount of time it takes to get marks out of stone (gouges, rough edges, grooves) by rubbing them with water.

                        I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired!
 
She sat across the desk from me, squirming.
It was stifling. My suite runs hot
but most days it is bearable.
 
This student has turned in nothing,
rarely comes to class. When she does,
her eyes bore into me with a disdain
born long before either of us.
 
She doesn’t trust anything I say.
She can’t respect my station,
the words coming out of these lips,
this face. My breathing
is an affront. It’s me, she says.
 
I never was this student’s professor—
her immediate reaction
seeing me at the smart board.
But I have a calling to complete
& she has to finish college,
return to a town where
she doesn’t have to look at,
listen to or respect anyone
like me—forever tall, large
& brown in her dagger eyes,
though it’s clear she looks down
on me. She can return—
if not to her hometown, another
enclave, so many others, where
she can brush a dog’s golden coat,
be vegan & call herself
a good person.
 
Are you having difficulty with your other classes?
 
No.
 
Go, I say, tenderly.
Loaded as a cop’s gun,
she blurts point-blank
that she’s afraid of me. Twice.
My soft syllables rattle something
planted deep,
so I tell her to go where
she'd feel more comfortable
as if she were my niece or
godchild, even wish her
a good day.
 
If she stays, the ways
this could backfire! 
Where is my Kevlar shield
from her shame?
 
There’s no way to tell
when these breasts will evoke
solace or terror. I hate
that she surprises me, that I lull
myself to think her ilk
is gone despite knowing
so much more, and better.
 
I can’t proselytize my worth
all semester, exhaust us
for the greater good.
I can’t let her make me
a monster to myself—
I’m running out of time & pity
the extent of her impoverished
heart. She’s from New
England, I’m from the Mid-South.
Far from elderly, someone
just raised her like this
with love.
 
I have essays to grade
but words warp
on the white page, dart
just out of reach. I blink
two hours away, find it hard
to lift my legs, my voice,
my head precious to my parents
now being held
in my own hands.
 
How did they survive
so much worse, the millions
with all of their scars!
What would these rivers be
without their weeping,
these streets without
their faith & sweat?
 
Fannie Lou Hamer
thundered what they felt,
we feel, into DNC microphones
on black and white TV
years before
I was a notion.
 
She doesn’t know who
Fannie Lou Hamer is,
and never has to.

a poem in seven parts


1   
convent

my knees recall the pockets
worn into the stone floor,
my hands, tracing against the wall 
their original name, remember
the cold brush of brick, and the smell   
of the brick powdery and wet
and the light finding its way in
through the high bars.

and also the sisters singing
at matins, their sweet music
the voice of the universe at peace   
and the candles their light the light   
at the beginning of creation
and the wonderful simplicity of prayer   
smooth along the wooden beads   
and certainly attended.


2
someone inside me remembers

that my knees must be hidden away   
that my hair must be shorn
so that vanity will not test me
that my fingers are places of prayer
and are holy      that my body is promised   
to something more certain
than myself


3   
again

born in the year of war
on the day of perpetual help.

come from the house   
of stillness
through the soft gate   
of a silent mother.

come to a betraying father.
come to a husband who would one day   
rise and enter a holy house.

come to wrestle with you again,   
passion, old disobedient friend,   
through the secular days and nights   
of another life.


4
trying to understand this life

who did i fail, who
did i cease to protect
that i should wake each morning   
facing the cold north?

perhaps there is a cart   
somewhere in history
of children crying “sister   
save us” as she walks away.

the woman walks into my dreams   
dragging her old habit.
i turn from her, shivering,
to begin another afternoon
of rescue, rescue.


5   
sinnerman

horizontal one evening   
on the cold stone,
my cross burning into   
my breast, did i dream   
through my veil
of his fingers digging
and is this the dream   
again, him, collarless
over me, calling me back   
to the stones of this world   
and my own whispered   
hosanna?


6   
karma

the habit is heavy.   
you feel its weight
pulling around your ankles   
for a hundred years.

the broken vows
hang against your breasts,   
each bead a word
that beats you.

even now
to hear the words
defend
protect
goodbye
lost or
alone
is to be washed in sorrow.

and in this life
there is no retreat   
no sanctuary
no whole abiding   
sister.


7
gloria mundi

so knowing,
what is known?
that we carry our baggage   
in our cupped hands   
when we burst through   
the waters of our mother.   
that some are born
and some are brought
to the glory of this world.   
that it is more difficult   
than faith
to serve only one calling   
one commitment
one devotion
in one life. 

It is not good to think
of everything as a mistake. I asked
for bacon in my sandwich, and then

I asked for more. Mistake.
I told you the truth about my scar:

I did not use a knife. I lied
about what he did to my faith
in loneliness. Both mistakes.

That there is always a you. Mistake.
Faith in loneliness, my mother proclaimed,

is faith in self. My instinct, a poor polaris.
Not a mistake is the blue boredom
of a summer lake. O mud, sun, and algae!

We swim in glittering murk.
I tread, you tread. There are children

testing the deep end, shriek and stroke,
the lifeguard perilously close to diving.
I tried diving once. I dove like a brick.

It was a mistake to ask the $30 prophet
for a $20 prophecy. A mistake to believe.

I was young and broke. I swam
in a stolen reservoir then, not even a lake.
Her prophesy: from my vagrant exertion

I'll die at 42. Our dog totters across the lake,
kicks the ripple. I tread, you tread.

What does it even mean to write a poem?
It means today
I'm correcting my mistakes.

It means I don't want to be lonely.

Bright Girl Sally
Mulatto Sally
Well Dressed Sally
Sally With the Pretty Hair
Sally With the Irish Cotton Dress
Sally With the Smallpox Vaccine
Sally, Smelling of Clean White Soap
Sally Never Farmed A Day In Her Life
Available Sally
Nursemaid Sally
Sally, Filled with Milk
Sally Gone to Paris with Master’s Daughter
Sally in the Chamber with the President
Sally in the Chamber with the President’s Brother
Illiterate Sally
Capable Sally
Unmarried Sally
Sally, Mother of Madison, Harriet, Beverly, Eston
Sally, Mother of Eston Who Changed His Name
Sally, Mother of Eston Hemings Jefferson
Eston, Who Made Cabinets
Eston, Who Made Music
Eston, Who Moved to Wisconsin
Eston, Whose Children Were Jeffersons
Eston, Who Died A White Man
Grandmother Sally of the White Hemingses
Infamous Sally
Silent Sally
Sally, Kept at Monticello Until Jefferson’s Death
Sally, Whose Children Were Freed Without Her

Between Babylon 
and the sea, I’ve built a home 
with the sea’s whispers. 

let me be yo wil
derness let me be yo wind
blowing you all day.

i am moving in
air amazon woman bare
foot thunderbound bells.

Back when I used to be Indian 
I am crushing the dance floor, 
jump-boots thumping Johnny Rotten 
Johnny Rotten. Red lights blue bang 
at my eyes. The white girl watching 
does not know why and it doesn't matter. 
I spin spin, eat I don't care for breakfast, 
so what for lunch. She moves to me, 
dark gaze, tongue hot to lips. The music 
is hard, lights louder. She slides low 
against my hip to hiss, go go Geronimo. 
I stop.
All silence he sits beside the fire 
at the center of the floor, hands stirring
through the ashes, mouth moving in the shape 
of my name. I turn to reach toward him, 
take one step, feel my skin begin
to flame away.

                                    I WANT THE COTTON BACK
                                    I WANT THE FIELDS IT GREW FROM
                                    I WANT THE FOOD IT BOUGHT
                                    I WANT THE CLOTHES IT WEAVED

I WANT THE BLOOD IT SUMMONED
              THE SUN IT DEMANDED
              THE SCARS IT PAID

                                    I WANT THE COTTON BACK
                                    I WANT ITS LEAVES
                                                                ITS STEMS
                                                  ITS THORNS
                                                                ITS ROOTS
                                    I WANT EVERYTHING
                                                                BUT ITS WHITE
I WANT THE COTTON BACK.
      WE’LL TAKE THE COTTON BACK.
          WE’LL TAKE BACK EVERYTHING IT TOOK OF US.

            ^{I did not run away
            I walked away by daylight       
                         —Sojourner Truth}

The hour  I  ran  out
on   my   bondage  I
didn’t                  run.
The        sun       was
Shining        in     its
Sunday’s           best,
beating its coat
on   my   coat.   This
heat   produced  my
sweat,    not      swift
feet.   My      haircut,
new.    &     my    hat
wore ribbons
fit        a          church
frontrow.  A   day  so
ordinary who  could
guess
what       I      walked
away    from?    How
could   I   be  anyone
but me,
with   my   name   in
my  teeth?   My  feet
gliding  under   each
detective’s   lowered
brim.    The   bounty
on my head
higher    than   hawk
circles.

The  night I walked
out   on  my  master
is  when   I   learned
I  was   serving  one.
The    same     molar
chiding  my  cheeks
a   mole    engorging
silence.    My     first
spy   the    dream  in
my
brain    entrenching
ownership.   I spent
12,000              treks
thinking my
moves   were     my
own  until   I  found
road stretching out
of  a  forest I hadn’t
even    seen    grow.
When I arrived
at    the     brush   &
flatland    I     knew
where   I had   been
had  not  been mine,
but   a  life   for   my
first love.    The first
who      gave        my
selfness   a    ceiling.
How  could   I  have
not     chosen      my
maker before
choosing myself?

The night I walked
out  on   my  master
wasn’t night
at    all.     Freedom
made the day
ordinary  in  a   new
way.   How    for    a
fish water is never
new,  just  a  change
between       bodies.
But if      a       child
exits
my  chute  gravity is
law,      &        down
becomes                 a
direction.
The first time my
feet touched floor I
learned the bottom.
After,
I  took  my  legs  &
forged      a       path
between  a  past   &
Jupiter.
Now    time     can’t
touch   me   &   I’m
where     water     is
always fresh
though  it pains like
we do.   Where pine
trees grow w/ no
hunting   season   is
where I am headed.
A  compass  w/   no
map   is   the   stars.
Find your way.  If  I
told       you        the
address
It  wouldn’t   be   a
secret.

My branch of thoughts is frail tonight
As one lone-wind-whipped weed.
Little I care if a rain drop laughs
Or cries; I cannot heed

Such trifles now as a twinkling star, 
Or catch a night-bird’s tune. 
My whole life is you, to-night,
And you, a cool distant moon.

With a few soft words to nurture my heart
And brighter beams following love’s cool shower
Who knows but this frail wind-whipped weed
Might bear you a gorgeous flower!

Write about walking into the building
as a new teacher. Write yourself hopeful.
Write a row of empty desks. Write the face
of a student you’ve almost forgotten;
he’s worn a Derek Jeter jersey all year.
Do not conjecture about the adults
he goes home to, or the place he calls home. 
Write about how he came to you for help
each October morning his sophomore year.
Write about teaching Othello to him;
write Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle, 
rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven. 
Write about reading his obituary
five years after he graduated. Write
a poem containing the words “common”
“core,” “differentiate,” and “overdose.”
Write the names of the ones you will never
forget: “Jenna,” “Tiberious,” “Heaven,”
“Megan,” “Tanya,” “Kingsley” “Ashley,” “David.”
Write Mari with “Nobody’s Baby” tattooed
in cursive on her neck, spitting sixteen bars
in the backrow, as little white Mike beatboxed
“Candy Shop” and the whole class exploded.
Write about Zuly and Nely, sisters
from Guatemala, upon whom a thousand
strange new English words rained down on like hail
each period, and who wrote the story
of their long journey on la bestia
through Mexico, for you, in handwriting
made heavy by the aquís and ayers
ached in their knuckles, hidden by their smiles.
Write an ode to loose-leaf. Write elegies
on the nub nose of a pink eraser.
Carve your devotion from a no. 2
pencil. Write the uncounted hours you spent
fretting about the ones who cursed you out
for keeping order, who slammed classroom doors,
who screamed “you are not my father,” whose pain
unraveled and broke you, whose pain you knew.
Write how all this added up to a life.  
 

when i can creep into our 3 am bed
slink into the sliver of mattress
you saved for me watch the streetlight
slice through the curtain leaving a streak
of fluorescence in your hair stare
at the ceiling and wait   maybe
you’ll steal back the covers maybe
you’ll offer me your leg maybe
you’ll beg for quiet then in a whisper
so not to stir the monster masquerading
as jeans on a chair you’ll ask get any
writing done?  no, read two articles though.

they say love is no different than large amounts of chocolate.
also, the cocoa bean will soon be no more.