The wind and the water take selfies in my mirror
--
pardon the rivers on my face
but I’ve seen too many closed into earth
without their insides ever seeing the light of day
what say you when your lover’s womb
is the middle passage the ancestors
never made their way through
when spirits are thrown overboard
before they ever reach shore
lines under my eyes all silt and sink
every poet’s words bout motherland
or sea crossing was a holy hand of nature
was Oya’s breath whispering gales of the decades
old levees behind my eyes
watched parts of me crumble into an ocean
wide as god’s mouth last year
watched infinity pick its teeth with my little traumas
marathon got a little brisk thinking
no one’s waiting at the finish line
but learned how to pat them thighs and firm
up the hind parts regardless
of course my masculinity’s fragile
I said to everyone in particular
it ain’t shit but water and sand grown old
tried a fresh new look last year and the water had its way with me
got beached whales on my cheeks
the shape of my daddy’s last night
and the night she said it’s over
least I got timestamps for my grief run its course
my old self passed on the baton last year
said the sack of bricks can die with him
I’m trying to adjust to the weight loss
something about feeling light as a feather
makes me feel naked and afraid of heights
at the same damn time
yeah, sure it was me the whole time
I said to everyone in particular
poetry is therapy session as public performance
or service announcement take your pick
everyone’s invited
this avalanche slowly is brought to you
by sporous sickness gone viral
meets another snuff tape gone the same
meets mildew round the yellowed edges
of once sacrosanct paper holding
the pictures of dead old white men
meets the chained & bound descendants
of the chained & bound
locked in the belly of a beast
packed tight as undigested food
in a raging sea rising with the foment
of ancestors gone too soon
which brings me back
to that levee behind my eyes
it never stood a chance
nor some of my best laid plans
this year’s resolutions are small fish
blurred beneath the rivers falling from my face
I can almost sea clearly now
my face is the beach after the storm
best laid plans all karmic driftwood
mixed with toppled infrastructure
ego is a house meant to broken
which way from here?
I asked everything in particular
the wind said follow the water
