Find and share the perfect poems.
Because I know
Now: how it feels
To sip that small space
Between becoming
And being found.
Guggenheim Poet-in-Residence presented in association with the Academy of American Poets. Made possible by Van Cleef & Arpels. Reprinted with permission of the poet.
When a mouth aboard said ship
called out to me, I was a berry
turned sour by sun’s
neglect, an old ornament gone
unglossed. It spoke to me & warranted
a new way of listening & at once
I heard two crows, heard both.
For years, that strange whistle
for my favorite auntie, Jeanette
Sometimes I think I’m never going to write a poem again
and then there’s a full moon.
I miss being in love but I miss
myself most when I’m gone.
In the salty wet air of my ancestry
my auntie peels a mango with her teeth
Am I allowed to disrespect the form. Am I allowed to instead proclaim that he’s raped me. That it just happened. And that I was small and formidable, a fruit or something else taking in from the sun and expanding. Am I allowed to say that I didn’t write it for you. Am I allowed to say that I’ve fucked four women and three men and owed nothing in the aftermath. Am I allowed to say that I didn’t do it for him or because of him, or to heal, or to mitigate the universe’s monopoly on wellness – but to be an organ in post survival, a dim sound existing retroactively, a full circle sold.