jauntily the way men go in groups
swinging their arms, and the ones
those sweating women whom i would have joined
after a hard game to chew the fat
what would we have called each other laughing
joking into our beer? where are my gangs,
my teams, my mislaid sisters?
all the women who could have known me,
where in the world are their names?
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it is hard to remain human on a day
in the trees and the squirrel eyesdo not look away but the dog ones doin pity.another child has killed a childand i catch myself relieved that they arewhite and i might understand exceptthat i am tired of understanding.if thisalphabet could speak its own tongueit would be all symbol surely;the cat would hunch across the long…
fox
can blame her for hunkeringinto the doorwells at night,the only blaze in the darkthe brush of her hopeful tail,the only starlighther little bared teeth?and when she is not satisfiedwho can blame her for refusing to leave,Master Of The Hunt, why am inot feeding, not being fed?the coming of foxone evening i returnto a red foxhaunched…
for mama
she is standing bythe furnace.the coalsglisten like rubies.her hand is crying.her hand is clutchinga sheaf of papers.poems.she gives them up.they burnjewels into jewels.her eyes are animals.each hank of her hairis a serpent’s obedientwife.she will never recover.remember. there is nothingyou will not bearfor this woman’s sake.
curling them around
thinking of everything but kinship.collards and kalestrain against each strange otheraway from my kissmaking hand andthe iron bedpot.the pot is black.the cutting board is black,my hand,and just for a minutethe greens roll black under the knife,and the kitchen twists dark on its spineand i taste in my natural appetitethe bond of live things everywhere.
and the gulf enters the sea and so forth,
all of them carrying yesterdayforever on their white tipped backs,all of them dragging forward tomorrow.it is the great circulationof the earth’s body, like the bloodof the gods, this river in which the pastis always flowing. every wateris the same water coming round.everyday someone is standing on the edgeof this river, staring into time,whispering mistakenly:only here….
whatever slid into my mother’s room that
summoned me out roundheaded and unsmiling.is this the moon, my father used to grin.cradling me? it was the moonbut nobody knew it then.the moon understands dark places.the moon has secrets of her own.she holds what light she can.we girls were ten years old and gigglingin our hand-me-downs. we wanted breasts,pretended that we had them, tissuedour…