essay on boat
in the oval of St. John’s Chapel.
in the dome of his visions; in the form
of ship or skew,
the times come. the virgins have been praying
for us before birth.
my sister is one of such flowers growing hard,
to avoid the common bruise, to reach sunlight.
red candles to the right light, an altar or
alternative on the left lifts up Jesus
or sacrificial lamb of the city on the horizon.
i stretch my soul to reach salvation.
i choose Church over politics because it loves
emigration;
i love the sermon on the exodus.
i lift myself on the other selves
up to the wuthering climax.
someday i will be written in white in a black skin,
tares, name of a flower;
light seeing the Mediterranean boats from Zanzibar.
it’s monday morning, work hour for those who keep
to the juice & flesh
of their bodies. i couldn’t recognize my mother
the sea when the Extant
1885 berths on the African shore.
goodbye mother, i wave as poet, the wizard
of Oz & passenger ( for we are the Children of Frank.
we can either be alive with
Judy Garland or Metro-Goldwyn)
leaving with the continent finding spaces in the body
of a thrall on water. this too is called Africa,
a ship rowing in the center of all illusions: my favorite colors
when i paint my dreams.
essay on the death of the girl who knows me by my name, tares
it’s only in naming a flower
that the fragrance stays.
stay, lucia, again, name me Ramah, which means crying or the shedding of dew.
under the almond tree
the gardeners love, Stay. be blue like the sea you inherited. of crushed petals.
& let the scent grow from its root
through the sap to the branches. stay. be the reach, the horizon a border town
full of birds.
spread into sunrise like incense
climbing steps of the wind to the moon. stay. gather your days in a moonshine
for me, drinking now a fifth of your exit
pouring forth from the mouth of a calabash.
stay. like rainfall like piano. from here, my black country, i can drink enough of the season, summer.
i can drink enough of you.
essay on sand
i have to write about deserts
sanded down the wheels of a Cherokee jeep driving
over the tip of a country vanishing into a grain of sand
to understand that i have lost you.
you walked up to the knowledge of yourself
when you ate the camel
& buried the journey along with its bones.
the hump rose to a yellow dune. feverish. homesick.
you spoke of horses riding around the apocalypse.
there comes the end where you no longer fit into the caravans,
when with boxes, or books, you hid history in roots of cactus.
the vans came & crushed your lineage to pieces.
sanded down the wheels of a Cherokee jeep
headed to America.
who is this tiger chasing after love, you?
