I can tell you, again, of how my father/ has never gone to war, yet he still built for us a battle ground/ within the trailer park, the undiagnosed sickness in his head/ laying a minefield of sudden rages & swinging fists/ the kitchen knife or the hunting rifle held close to our throats…

If your damn problems are so damn grand, then get a grander god/ to eat them whole -/
beef and bones and eyelashes and all./ It don’t even barely chew – just cocks it head back/ and knocks it down.

But houseplants/ don’t know hardships/ Indoor cacti/ can’t imagine the desert…

“Where the fuck is Michael Stipe?”

the woken memories of our grandfathers/ the hot south spinning into sap/ the taut cobweb of bracing knuckles/ a symbol like a broken limb/ the fear that repeats itself like water/ the fear that repeats itself like water

death need not know/ that i am aware that it/ follows my Black body–

Because they know the piety of/ What collects sound without addition or distortion/ And refracts light without absorption…

When I was 37, my partner came into the room with a handful of sticks. He had pulled them out of the garbage disposal. “You can’t put that in there,” he said.