to unwind and untie the traps that have caught us
moving us backwards through car doors held open a tunnel out of Sunday’s fresh-slept sheets
to meet you in a place of new beginningsbefore
before
before
iii.
where did you sleep last nighthung on our breath
before before
our hopes shook like sandcastlescrumbling
at the thought of high tidebefore whatever it was that
illuminated usdied quiet and quivering in the shadow
of our egos and the echos ofour pride
I walk these timelines nowa bird on razor wire
collectingeverywordwehaveeverused
against each other in desperation or angerI lay
these things out at my feet
iv.
beginning with the most innocent-looking words
I try to deconstruct the moment
of breaking
I arrange the usual suspects by name and crime
YOU
hanging heavy on each corner
glaring accusatorily at
I
trust slouching roughragged at its edges
blamestretched like a one-man bridge
from end to startthere is no room for all of us here
green pied peach-faced lovebird
draw out each feather that separatesone lover’s skin
from the next displaceforgive
reclaim forgeterase
the line that lies wetheavy in the sand between them
I am willing can make this sacrificego without
armour of featherguard of tongue or sword
I would lie down beside youin Sunday’s sheets
without weapon without wordstretch myself
on timelines that go everywhereand nowhere except
to loop back to your door
love you into remembering what forgetfulness is for
no one of us alone
The good thing about death
is not the leaving not the
hollowing out or the loss
it is the noticing that happens
after/ content patience in winding
conversations/ new found attention
paid to every subsequent goodbye
this magnificent capacity for forgiveness stretching its arms
inside my belly/ the quiet kitchen table conversations
and the constant absentminded interlacing of fingers
funerals can make perfectly late stages/ stories might come alive
in bursts of laughter or the nervous wringing of hands
they seep out unexpected/ the details that make a person that tell the big
secret
no one of us alone can know
will you write it?
the story that burrowed and bristledunder your young skin
the painthat crumples your face and pulls the curtains tight
the joy that spills from smirking lips in the middle of the night
will it move your pen to write
when all the world is sour broke and aching could you write it
still?
it was her voice in my ear then, and even here, a smiling sound
that saidI bet you couldI bet you will
called me sweet childin the corners of my head
where no one else could find me, I wrote for herfor her
picked up my pen to carve the fear out of my own throat
she taught me to reshape a shame I learned I never had to own
and even now, when I open my mouth to scream when I stare
into the mirror slack-jawedand cannot make a sound
I hear her voice even now
will you say it, are you brave enough to let yourself break for it
just for the sake of speaking itwill you weep for it
I used to curl my face into miss maya’s books bury my head in
my grandmother’s lap make fortress from the underside of
a school desk all the places I could find to hideseeking out
the silence deep enough to coax my voice from its quickening
sandsuntether my tongue from its pride
and thereI found myself liberated in her pagesshaken
until all my bells and diamonds fell out, beckoned to the stage
by the sage wisdom of a mother who never even knew my face
will you write it, when it’s hardest could you be your own
saving grace your sweet mouth is not a casket let it be a seed
and I nurture myself within her soil as her voice plays on
repeat
now it echoes from the white house to the corners of the street
from the gala dinners to the hotel rooms where the working
girls like her, would meet will you write it sit a while and let
your voice loosen the fisted hands of every clock do not
hold your words tight remember, first, that love is not a lock
it is a liberating thing
open up your mouth sweet child your voice has always been
here always worthy always urgent open up your mouth
i had to choose
the summer my body broke
i learned to hate
and then love
and then hate
and then need
my own company
yousuddenlysohardtoreach
became a mountain
i could no longer climb
impossible
to rouse the energy to crawl to the bathroom
and your feetat the same time
(the woman is made of eyes and she got a tornado running up her spine)
woken by my alarm, 6:30 a.m. just early enough to beat mommy to the kitchen. I rise and dress. meet her making her way through the hallway. catch the raw edge of a woman blowing through the corridors of a house she built from scratch, knows by touch. cooking in her kitchen, beneath her ever-present gaze I find myself a little worried for the day that mommy becomes like the wind, scoops up her whole singing being and ascends into the ether.
moving through my house like a cool breeze just over my shoulder, what will she think about the way I clean my kitchen, cook my meat, speak my own tongue, stitch my hems, fuck my lovers? what lessons will she lay for me to find in the heat of fresh pepper seeds, or the steady slope of my woman’s neck?
I study mommy’s face, the fragile ringed cloth of it, her hands the accountants of so much time
sometimes when you talk to me, is not me, but an angel you speak with
I know, mommy, of course I know.
things I can do
for Sylvia
I can brush your hair, squeeze
this tube of medicated moisture
onto green sponge
and through your open mouth.
I can run my oiled fingers
across your dried lips,
hold your hand, I can still hold
your hands. I can file and paint
your nails same as always, I can
play you all the sad songs I know
on ukulele. I surprise myself,
I can pray
to a god I don’t remember kindly.
I can cry sometimes. I can check
with the nurses:
Is it time for medicine?
Is it time? It is time for medicine.
I can read to you from a book
that I will not finish once you
are gone. I can sit quietly in a room
with family that has not
felt like family for so long,
since they piece-by-pieced you years
too early. I can tell
myself and my mother that we are
all here because we love. I can try
to make myself believe.
I can brush your hair, put on
your f
avourite music, squeeze this tube
of medicated
moisture onto green sponge. I can
check if you are breathing. I can call
the nurse: It is time
for medicine. I can phone
with an update. I can cry, can argue
over brands of morphine.
when no one else is around I can
smoke, quickly. I can rush back,
find you breathing. Run my oiled finger
across your lips, I can wash your face.
move a warm cloth over your hands
and rub ponds into the whisper-thin
creases of you. I can watch and wince
as nurses change
another diaper, I can cry, I can
wait, I can kiss your fingers.
I can thank and thank
and thank. I can say goodbye
into your ear, knowing that it is good.
I can drive to the airport. I can fly home,
I can hear your voice.
I can hear your voice.
northern light
Stepping off the plane in whitehorse
the last thing I expect to feel is home
not quite alone but close enough
herein this great black north
as we driveaway from the airport
chris points out the window
that’s antoinette’s Caribbean food
if you’re feeling in need of a pick-me-up
she’s from tobago
and I’m not sure if he knows
it’s the same island that bred these bones,
that just the song of its nameis home
what strange things are we creatures
of the diasporatreasures
of the caribbean sea,
knocking our knees together in parkas
teeth chattering
where the thin treesstretch
high the heavens
to seek the queerest light
what strange escapes have we made
to want to call this placehome
and I doI do
feel the ghosts of women not unlike us
whose resilienceand fortitude
pulled more than goldand dust and
opportunityfrom this blistering cold
I am told the alaska highway
was an engineering feat
constructed under the doubtand
bloody weight of jim crow
what strange things are wethat we
see a barrierbut build a road
I know this to be true
there is not always a way around
but I can promise you a way through if
we can remember both the haunted
and the hunters
if we can be courageous enough to dig
into the depths of humane capabilities
stretch our capacities for toleranceand love
how strange and brave are we
it’s winter here yet it feels like everywhere
the world is turning coldand stark
oh, nation
who will birth this light
work build nurturefight
for a place we can all call home
regardless of difference
celebrate our place in this shared story
this fierce resistance
some thinkthe dark is full of terrors
because they cannot see
what it concealsor perhaps
they do not know that the dark itself is
a precious giftand we
strange creatures of the shimmering
northcan be the light that it reveals
monday morning made delicious
here there is a poem words where there were none
a poem that did not exist before yesterday
swallowed the hard truth of another sun a near miss
before tonight and tomorrow’s first kiss
before the mess of this light began to bleed bright
over blinking horizon before I was here fiendishly writing
there was a deal between dark hours and the weary who walk them
a cost for long slow moments that unravel in silence thick
come quick the tab is running the taxman is coming
and when day breaks in to collect I want my face to reflect
life’s light like a beacon I want a reason to open palms
embalmed with ethereal dreams made tangible like demons
in dark corners I want to show you something hard and lovely
and sayPsssssssst! I made this for you today
I want to press your skin against the sun tell you not to run
while I detonate hand grenades in the cracks between the spaces
that make your scared face turn sacred and then I want to stop
the night from fleeting because isn’t it amazing how little sleep it takes
to keep breathing I want to dream, all day I want to play
while other’s minutes are spent sleeping LOOK keep reading
this is where I collected every single breath we shared replayed
the nicotine nervous steps of our dancing counted and caught
back-glances at the ramshackle-romancing of our quiet whispers
and awakenings and pretendings see
I captured every teary smile like tonic for the new worries
tomorrow will surely bring perhaps that is a surly thing to say
perhaps this is distastefully fictitious but day is beating down my door
tossing threats across my floor and calling you delicious
I am tired this much is true and sleep she is a fair-weather friend
and black sky blusters into blue and my thoughts go on and on
without an end and sun is rising like flare through a fog and everything
is quiet and everything is hard and you are lovely and soon I will be too
and good morning I made this for you
but have you tried
have you
wedded
yourself
to the edge
of a knife
braided
your names
together
like a promise
wrung your
sweet voice
until all of
the valleys
echo echo
hollow
have you
swum beneath
possibility
carried
the cross of
an ending
found
the bottom
of your own
seeking
drunk the
false venom
of delight
climbed
back up
the drain
made your
way out
dripped in
the sacred
filthy as
all human
and alive
what’s been keeping you up at night
I do not need to tell you that
you are enough
you already know
that everything you are
is all you need
even though the weight
of this world might sometimes
bring you down to your knees
you must believe
you must believe
the poet rumi once said
what do you know of your
yet-undiscovered beauty
one of these days you will rise
from within yourself like a sun
I offer you these words
from my own heart lips and tongue
if you look around you/ and everything
is burning/ licked in flames up-reaching
like a funeral pyre
check if you are breathing
If you are it stands to reason
perhaps you’re not t
he kindling you’re the fire
indigo medicine
dreamed you were here, cloaked
in a quiet face that looked
nothing like sadness
every passing second is another ending
maybe joni mitchellis a prophet
or a witchI scarred a record of hers once
you know the onea kind of premonition
one day I will say goodbye so hard that my whole
body will blossominto a field of poppies
a single iris drippingfrom each of my eyes
you could be proudI said noagain today
cut the chordI used to sing your name
shattered our tune into a thousand tiny bells
anddanced toward some doorway
this bruised sea I’ve crossedit is the picture of
our great big endingspitting image of a falling
red cedarpiling her body between yours
and minekickinga heel against the door as
we stumble wilted
fog a breath against my windowfingerso long
into the misty film separating us go away
again
I promise youthere is always something good
to walk away fromsweeter still once you’ve left
you knowthe freedomis exquisite
the bike poem
There are two types of people in the world
those with a moral compass and the type
of motherfucker who would steal my bike
from my house/ while I am sick in bed with the flu
so I address this to you/ the douche-canoe
who will likely never understand the significance
of the electric jon sticker that straddled the
crossbar of my beloved steedthough
I pray it is perpetually kicking you in the crotch
seriouslywhat kind of asshat steals a sick person’s
bikeI imagine you are some depraved creature the likes
of which would make hunter s. thompson’s skin crawl
I assume you have no parents at all/ but then I picture you
cowering in the womb of your mother’s basement
masturbating to the classic bike poetry of johnny macrae
using the tears of the bikeless as lube
and I want you to know that I will never
stop hunting you and I swear on lance armstrong’s
good nut that when I find you
I will have my revenge
(bright embroidered tablecloth, cutlass, mirror)
Back at the house and just rising from a small rest, I begin to set myself to the task of laundry. mommy has a small machine that wants a life, long as her, and so I wash my clothes in the old way. Carrying them down to mommy’s basin, there I become accustomed to the feel of the concrete washboard against my hands, the ringing of the cloth, the crisp smell of the blue bar soap.