Poetry

it seemed she had no idea / she was doing it     as if the habit was / a reaction to a far-off memory     as if / she wasn’t in front of us     any longer / and she was thinking back     thirty years

importance is contextual. like. the mountain climber tramples / on countless undiscovered plants on his way to the summit / each day and does not realize it.

met a stranger. on the street. he said, “you good?” / well, he actually said “ni hao?” which we all know is “hello”

“. . . you’ve shown me some crimes are so tall even / God tilts His head to meet them/ in the eye.”

The night I understood what it means to be / Black, a line of bats perched on my roof, / owls fell into my room like rain.

Unable to remember / how I’ve arrived, at night / I get drunk, vodka / on the shore, searching / for paradise in any crevice

I squeeze the snapdragons / as though it were childhood / and the smallest motion / of petal mandible / were a thousand words / for loving you / laid out on a blanket:

we be bouquets, be green, leaves / ethereal, be wildweeds, be lamb’s-quarter, be day / -flowers’ cool blue, be hue busting / up bleak blur.