The Poetry Marathon

I crane my head and stare up at the 

camera mounted on the side 

of a gleaming new high rise

A little me is caught momentarily 

in a rounded black mirror

Whose charge is it to monitor 

the closed circuit broadcast

while i’m strafing slightly at street corners

pausing to intuit the most advantageous route

Do they watch me like a tv?

I used to cover the front-facing

cameras on laptops and phones

with a pit of scotch tape

hoping that it would foil

any attempts at surveillance

I often watch people 

Involuntarily out of the corners of my eye

I was taught early that trust is a luxury

This impropriety is hardwired in

And has me listening 

for the messages in inflections

the erectness in the spine 

the buckling of shoulders 

of a passerby

How wide, long, 

and quick 

are the footsteps on 

the sidewalk?

Gobbling up these hints

Hoping that, collectively,

They will answer the question:

We cool? 

And if not, 

I would rather be grounded

And present enough 

to ask the question:

What would it take 

to be able to look at each other 

directly in the eye 

on equal footing?

Death

If God is Change

Death is Certainty

there are no questions

or details left unattended

nothing left to Chance

(who would undoubtedly be

some haughty and commanding figure)

Death knows both you

and the itinerary

inside and out

Death will appear

in the form through which

you can best comprehend

the gravity of the situation –

their expression is wry

as if they are

always a step ahead of you

and they are

a sardonic sense of humor

is necessary

for the particular task

As well as curated kindness

like a nurse

with a frightened patient

like an old friend

a guide

a guardian angel

or a kind top

walking you home

when it’s time to go

The day is unseasonably hot and languid. The long arms of the pothos skate around the window and reveal leaves that have browned in the summer heat. I consider joining an impromptu trip to the beach. My glass creates a small puddle on the kitchen table.

A familiar piano tune harmonizes with the whirring of the fans staggered around the main floor of this shared home. The small silver-blue fish seem agitated and dart back and forth in their tank. I look down at a note christened by black lipstick.

Everyone gathers downstairs. The heat has risen and the wood of the doors swells. I pace the house searching for something that will pique my interest. I grab a plum from the hanging basket in the kitchen and sink my teeth into the soft fruit. The juice dribbles through my fingers and over my chin.

A pile of ideas is gathering on notes in a wooden box carved with spirals. They wait on the writing table by the window for someone willing to implement them. Outside the camellias flanking the porch are between flowering cycles and carefully plan their next blossoming. The tall candle I lit on Summer Solstice has finally burned down in its glass.  

My childhood bedroom was periwinkle

there I dreamed instead

of living inside a library

and being a hermit

in a heady cloud of thoughts,

shining ideas, and esoteric philosophies 

I hear the color that housed me 

belonged to the Virgin Mary

if anyone, she would understand

the power of a medical miracle

to bring forth a child 

who was meant to be birthed

Years later, I sit in my room

strewn with blue, pink, and purple

having fastidiously spread 

alcohol wipes, needles, 

and bandages across my bed

drawing testosterone from a little vial

past the marks and measures of fear 

into the syringe as a sacrament

May this be prima materia

the Black Madonna 

And the stuff of which the universe is made

I chose the same beloved song

And belt along with the familiar lines

an interpretation of Plato’s Symposium

In this moment, 

it is a treatise on wholeness 

as I transfigure

Great Black Mother, hold me 

Metamorphose me 

in your cosmic cocoon

I finish my work before

the beat drops

in time to sing

the origin of love

To meet someone 

And to know them

Really get to know them

sitting behind a waterfall

With heavy walls

descending

between

And you

Are a mystery

On the other side 

of a global torrent

Of prolonged separation

Sitting with your own demons

And being washed in cycles of your truth

I’ll meet you on the shore

After being slammed on the rocks

Like laundry

Like a stone

sea-tumbled and rounded

And hungry for something smooth

And in this moment

I want to know you

Lorde said: 

“The master’s tools 

will never dismantle 

the master’s house.”

You might make a dent

But that don’t mean the cat

Won’t catch the mouse,

Like Tom & Jerry.

Stop trying to get their tools

And set them to a different mission

Without the comprehension

…and, should I mention?

Don’t unpin them from walls

Don’t buy them from malls

You won’t learn it in their hallowed halls.

Did the master build those tools

Or get someone else to make them?

Cut the legs beneath the future

Before we have the chance to meet it

You can see what they got, 

But if you want fulfillment

You’ll find out that you don’t really need

To do what they do 

You can’t get where they are 

By putting on somebody else’s shoes.

She told us to think out of the box

To break out the locks 

That bind, blinding the mind

To other options 

Get outta their shed

Get right in your head

Recenter those with the 

least historical power

Build community foundations

While you knock over their tower

Remember you are not workhorses

There’s always more recourses

It’s more about the heart of the people 

Than it is the resources

The Good Place

If I were to pass away today

and take leave of my body

and find myself on the other side

of the thin veil between life and death,

where would I wake up?

If there was a heaven, 

would it be like the Christians tell it?

Peopled by Raphael’s dough-faced 

baby cherubim inattentively

attending the Madonna’s gate

behind which spread buffets of milk and honey?

Or would there be terrifying multi-eyed wheel beings 

Like their book says?

If there was a hell,

would it be all bad marketing and poop jokes?

Would the personal hell awaiting me

be built inside of a small windowless office

on hold with a doctors office

listening to the same muzak on loop…

for millennia.

Perhaps, there is some middle ground

steeped in sepia and perpetual “meh-ness”

or some inexplicable void 

orchestrated by incomprehensible beings.

What careful calculations and 

mathematics of meaning-making

could possibly surmise the contributions

of a single life?

And what a horrible power to wield.

I don’t know the answers

or if anyone is really in charge

but, I do hope that it is fair

that they have a sense of humor,

and that there is froyo in the beyond.

When I was in middle school

Sitting in the back of the math class

On account of alphabetical order

(by last name)

I never knew that everyone else 

could see the equations

In dark green dry erase marker

at the front of the room clearly

Coming home from the optometrist

I stared out through the back seat window

Of the family car

in wonder

Now able to see 

the little leaves

On the tall trees

through glasses

For the first time

That little version of me

Was quietly beginning to understand

That I was different

And my nuances were obscured 

beneath the broad strokes

My errant rivulets diverted 

Back into the mainstream

Do not draw me

In your image 

Do not make me

with a child’s unsteady hand

In an attempt to make 

A green triangle into a tree

always missing the details

See my deep roots

the wild, thorny vines

Acknowledge the whorls and spots

I have lost limbs

Severed by rough, uncaring hands

I have withstood forest fire

And days of cooling rain

I will continue throwing off my leaves 

when it is time for me to transform again

And, Yet, here I stand

Swaying gently in the breeze

And beneath me, 

you sit

taking full advantage

of my shade

Be it my moon in Taurus 

or another celestial configuration

I treasure simple, soft things

The old stuffed animal

a warm pair of alpaca socks

the blanket I absconded with 

before it could be presented 

as a gift to an unborn infant.

There is little growth to be found

in comfortable things,

I understand

yet, I have loved them most of all.

I am a child

who has repeatedly decided

to find my way back into wombs

of my own creation

and through these blanket fort portals

I have found the safety to search 

for true reflections of myself. 

I refuse to put away childish things

I will bring them 

and their magic with me–

it begins with a choice

to take off the shoes you gave me 

swing open the front door

rename myself as stardust

in pursuit of the lost romance 

of being undeniably alive.

What would I learn

if I listened closely to the Earth?

If I laid down, first lowering myself

onto hands and knees,

prostrating myself 

until my stomach and soft cheek 

kiss the ground? 

If I press one ear 

into the grass,

would I hear the business

of the creatures who live there 

and learn what it’s like to see

a single drop of rain fall

from the tip of a bright green leaf?

If I sunk my hands into moist, cool soil

could I coerce it to give way

in handfuls of rich, thick blackness?

Tell me of the lives that have walked this land

of the ones who baked bread and bricks

who hunted and read the stars

followed herds and rushing rivers to the ocean.

Show me their stories 

sing to me the rhythms and prayers

of those who slept and fought 

and fucked and worked

and hurt and strived

and felt and laughed

And played. 

One day, my bones will join them

in sleep well beneath the surface 

of modern life.

For now, I excavate–

listening to the voices 

that rattle and whisper 

inside my own skeleton

And see that I am the time capsule.