^{For Valentine}

my girl positioned for a twerk session-

             knees bent, hands below the thigh, tongue out, head

turned to look at her body’s precession. 

she in tune. breath in. breasts hang. hips freshen. 

            she slow-wine. pulse waistline to a beat bled

for her, un-guilt the knees for the session.

fair saint of vertebrae- backbone blessing,

            her pop- in innate. her pop- out self- bred,

head locked into her holied procession. 

dance is proof she loves herself, no questions-

            no music required, no crowd needed. 

she arched into a gateway, protecting-

this dance is proof she loves me, no guessing. 

            a bronx bedroom, we hip-to-hip threaded. 

she turn to me, tranced by her possessin’. 

she coils herself to, calls forth a legend-

round bodied booty, bounce a praise ballad.

she break hold, turn whole in a twerk session. 

body charmed, spell-bent, toward progressing.

When Mama died, I lost my air. Hit with an anvil of grief. 
In dreams, the rains came. Streets filled with sorrow. 
I’m standing with Thomas at the bridge edge seeking relief. 

The sound of her voice is fleeting. Time is a thief— 
she will never return to me. Thomas says not to follow 
his lead. Don’t hold onto it. It’s heavy. This anvil of grief. 

Without funerary activities, they say, you live in constant disbelief 
your loved one is gone. You seek the Light, if only for a moment, to borrow 
so you don’t follow Thomas to the bridge edge, seeking relief. 

I focus what little energy I have on the children. My chief 
concern. When I’m clear-eyed, I know I’m one of God’s sparrows— 
yes. Mama’s dead. But He will lift the weight of my anvil of grief. 

A flood of sadness fills my days. Is this the end? It is my belief 
Mama’s spirit is heaven-bound, her earthly body is hollow— 
there’s no use running graveside, dragging Thomas, seeking relief. 

Now I know the ways of Thomas’s moods, flitting like a leaf 
in the fall breeze. Grounded. Far away. Grounded. With Thomas, tomorrow’s 
tasks: Kiss our children. Tell them we love them. Lift off our chests the anvil of grief— 
it’s no use if we both run to the Bay bridge’s edge, seeking relief.

There was the bang
and then this 

bloom. Long falling action.
Each beginning—lip to lip, 

slick birth, blue-red, momentous—
gave way to a succession of meals, hours

at the desk. Only a few 
like this one 

on an evening beach. 
My mother and I 

each hold one of my daughter’s hands.
I don’t touch my mother now,

only the brief embrace upon arrival 
or departure. Not like once. 

But if the years unspool 
in a common pattern I will 

hold her hand again. Sometime 
I’ll cradle her elbow 

steady down a stair.
This year I watched her 

speak slowly and set cut food 
before her own mother. I thought

what wild reversals time makes, 
how we sail out on the far 

sling of orbit, then come close 
again. A red sun

pillows on the surf
that pulls away from us, and

even on a cut stem, 
buds keep opening.