Praise to the father holding his sleeping daughter on the 52nd Street trolley
To the daughter sleeping through the pothole thrum
Praise to the diabetic with shorn feet & sugarcane blood
To the shooting nerve through her left hip & lower spine
To those flying gods on their routes
Praise to the red-headed Rasta & his ganja-laced T-shirt
To the Vietnam vet at Cass Corridor holding his sign
To the sign which reads: “Not homeless Just strugglin”
Praise to the barbers calming the fatherless in their chairs
To the mothers trying not to overhear this soothing
To soothing
Praise to razed skylines & ruins
To whatever replaces the horizon
To the lost toddler who refused to speak to strangers
To the strangers who would not let him be lost
Praise to sisters in love with whoever won’t love them
To others in love with whoever won’t bother
Praise to the lovers who left lessons
the lovers who left scars
To the memory of topography
raised surface, smooth to touch
To id’s fragile shards & ego’s fringed edge
Praise to boys who make beeswax fingernails
To little girls who wear fatigues & eye black
Praise to the overlooked
the overlooking
Praise to Miss Toto, Bambi Banks, Pearl Harbour
To bombs that never landed
To satellites that couldn’t be coaxed to Earth
To the dreams in bodies that won’t hold a lie
Praise to beauty that doesn’t suffer rules
To dollar store sheik & sleek vintage tins
To Type 2 wave & Type 4 curl
To wanting to be
To being
Praise to the hard-won win against Chronos
To the stone wrapped in swaddling
the neurotic eaglet safe in hiding
the sirens fostering seafamilies
the eye uncrossed, uncrowed
Praise to love’s resurrection
incising shame’s jugular
To the seven ecstatic hallelujahs
To the left hand counting 5 of them
To le petit mort & headboard bang
Praise to boot houses
children running over frayed laces
Praise to the old kitchen, half-gutted,
its springtime gnats & winter flies
its mice hugging sweet corners
Praise to that which endures
To old doors, layers of paint
years of storm beating solid oak
To the gable roof that is a ceiling,
the coffered ceiling that is also a floor
Praise to what shoulders weight
To brackets & load-bearing walls
beams & spindly skeletons
sacred geometry & tangents
To levees & pregnant summers
the bullet-ridden body
coilspring & wheel
Praise to open wombs & caskets
any mother who must decide either
To the crown & seed lowering
into the thorny or fertile soil
Praise to the ground unfastening
To every earthworm’s bristle
& every seraph’s six wings
entwined in songwaltz of welcome
To the body relenting solely to dust
the spirit ascending straightway to stars
Praise to all who rejoice in becoming
To all who transform in return
Copyright © 2019 by Airea D. Matthews. Originally published in Michigan Quarterly Review (Summer, 2019). Used with the permission of the poet.