|
We knew night |
|
|
mapped toward a low longing hum |
|
|
an arrhythmia |
|
|
|
|
|
Some say the—was what made the lips smack |
|
|
|
|
|
Met him once |
|
|
In a gas station once, |
|
|
the sock hop white R&B |
|
|
The kinda slow played that way in that one movie |
|
|
|
The one with all the cat people |
|
We danced off beat |
|
|
That voice made us end |
|
|
the rubbing the length and width of our trauma |
|
|
self-soothing ended. Made him stand stiff |
|
|
|
|
|
He’s not moved since |
|
|
|
|
|
This same night knew |
|
|
I had no babies to feed Saturn to soothe his anger |
|
|
My barren womb…I undressed every night |
|
|
Let him take the flesh, the raw |
|
|
|
|
|
The most difficult parts that threatened |
|
|
to break his jaw |
|
|
|
|
|
Saturn isn’t the only one who eats babies |
|
|
spent so much time in his belly, |
|
|
he taught me his way |
|
|
Hot temper turned paternal, |
|
|
loverly |
|
|
|
Honey when you dine on bodies, seek a man’s heart |
|
|
never his words |
|
|
never his touch |
|
|
or else, you’ll starve |
|
We knew the thinning hours |
|
|
of ambrosial hours we chased |
|
|
It was when the wind was the fist |
|
|
Knocking the door open |
|
|
When ears heard engines carry quiet and empty |
|
|
|
|
|
Driverless |
|
|
|
|
|
Within day being swallowed by asphyxiation |
|
|
No shepherds here, but farm folk |
|
|
A man aiming an indexed target at sky, |
|
|
explains to Son, |
|
|
|
See the pale pink, how it swallows the blue boy? |
|
|
It’s an old one they say |
|
|
about the Sun saying he’d exchange his whole self |
|
|
for a witness of her yawn |
|
|
Son. Pay attention. |
|
|
|
|
|
Only be that man to give that kinda life |
|
|
Hear? |
|
A girl, African Grandfather, and Jack Daniel’s |
|
|
are held between the index and thumb |
|
|
of thinning and ambrosial hours |
|
|
where she tells him, I am going to die doing this |
|
|
Where he says, |
|
|
|
No. God doesn’t work that way. |
|
|
You’ll even be able to make |
|
|
another and another and another trip. |
|
|
You’ll die going to help children |
|
His words wrapped like the coat she wears |
|
|
and Echo being herself vibrates |
|
|
in the bones of the girl Die….like this…. |
|
|
|
|
|
Day heard the low hum felt in the bones |
|
|
an arrhythmia |
|
|
I corn mama myself leaving tendons, |
|
|
blood, my unsatisfaction left in streets |
|
|
offices. Sometimes apartments. |
|
|
|
|
|
Sometimes bedsheets |
|
|
|
|
|
The keep-keep on toil |
|
|
and like all good work |
|
|
this work has a song |
|
|
|
|
|
Day’s caught when Alice called |
|
|
Dig that dirt from nails |
|
|
bite ‘em if we hafta |
|
|
Spat out like chew of tobacco |
|
|
Nah, we don’t spat |
|
|
We swallow the bits of glass |
|
|
the poison, the…all of it |
|
|
|
We not your lusty thangs |
|
|
We nobody’s anythang |
|
|
|
|
|
We are the hungry |
|
|
The never fully fed |
|
|
the…come here |
|
|
|
|
|
closer |
|
|
|
|
In known dusk |
|
|
the howl opens to the deep red |
|
|
the back of the throat red |
|
|
mouth, broken wide till teeth are on a flat plane |
|
|
|
|
|
Where a tongue remains |
|
|
as wet as the engorged cunt |
|
|
The one not contained in panties |
|
|
|
|
|
She’s the cave |
|
|
|
Here I said |
|
|
Now I said |
|
|
Gonna swallow you, gulp you |
|
Not said promised |
|
|
You’ve neva known a missin’ like this |
|
|
No gimme said |
|
|
No yank felt. You won’t feel gettin got |
|
|
Imma take as I’ve always |
|
|
|
|
|
But baby you’ll. Be. Full. |
|
|
|
|
|
In Mama Nyx’s cervix |
|
|
The drum spoke his voice |
|
|
All things he hymned in silence |
|
|
what he finna do when I said |
|
|
|
I want it, like this |
|
Once that howl was heard |
|
|
of self, of vestments no longer |
|
|
Now be you an imagined thing |
|
|
a figment of the untouchable thing |
|
|
|
|
|
You be the that very thing, in a box |
|
|
|
|
|
In this cave lit where daylight can’t touch |
|
|
I am the horror, the hagged, the beauty |
|
|
I’ve been had. I am the neva touched |
|
|
No idea have you that your mouth can’t hold me |
|
|
|
|
|
I am the unseen obscene |
|
|
|
|
|
In known night |
|
|
I’ve killed the toil in my bones |
|
|
Let’em starve in that field |
|
|
Corn Mama’s no more |
|
|
|
|
|
I serve as I am served |
|
|
I read his silences |
|
|
he says his awakening, that utterance |
|
|
|
|
|
is his is Mines |
|
|
|
|
|
In the dusk when moon dares daylight, |
|
|
|
Take holla outta ya lungs |
|
|
focus on where you grew me |
|
|
Gonna bring you to where the red disappears |
|
|
The way earth is swallowed by water |
|
|
|
|
|
I won’t swallow you |
|
|
Won’t sacrifice my body to your yawn |
|
|
Won’t need pieces of you gone missin’ |
|
|
Imma need all of you for what we finna… |
|
|
|
|
|
you’ve imagined none of this child |
|
|
|
|
My body in his hush |
|
|
in the hum of his desire |
|
|
legs carry me to ambrosia |
|
|
in the forever night tucked in my womb |
|
|
|
|
|
My body broke day |
|
|
|
|
|
the way my body won’t succumb |
|
|
That low longing hum |
|
|
how it grows |
|
|
how it takes his voice |
|
|
|
|
|
how it makes him have to use his hands |
|
