Julienne, Naked.

You're a bitch, julienne,

with your face

braced for the worst

you squeeze the wurst

out of me.

You're a witch, julienne,

waltzing away

all my hard-earned

creative juice,

reduced.

You're a snitch, julienne,

slicing the knife

down my finger,

lingering at the taste

of fine blood.

One day I'll pacify you,

make love to

you on the counter.

Right now, all I do

is dice.

Rough Draft.

River is wide and

water knee deep, she said.

So deep, it looks black sometimes.

Nothing rhymes with sometimes

unless we rhyme it with itself.

Like a whirlpool. Over again.

One time, my father almost died

in water, before I was born.

I hadn't worn my fabric into the pink quilt

of my mama's red womb, but he knew

of me, and so did others.

Collective, we know.

He gave me jars of water

and now I make it slosh round till the

insides drown, flooding my stomach

quick as it came in. The water

moves rivers through me.

See it on the floor,

falling through the cracks,

the boards, seeping the earth

it stands on. It is good medicine.

This lady tells me bye pretty mama,

but I'm not anyone's mama. Still,

I dance to a song I can't hear.

She wore djembe earrings.

A Serious Man.

If I were to write something serious

if I were to ever do a thing

like that

it would be to make note of the fact

that I've never seen you comb your hair,

more of how it roars

around your serious face

and purrs down each night

into deep pillow creases.

not sure where this was going.

we are four:

four pairs of feet, the

occasional callous or blister

where one sits

on the sidewalk of her watch

watching it all

the gravel skidding,

tires, eroding.

one stands

up for her rights like

her boss man told her not to and

another stands

o she stands, with fists pumping

legs burning

a fire building

behind the bricks of what she sees;

one screams

with a wide pink tongue,

profligating the word of the future

the words found hidden

in bread crusts,

in dust crumbs

in wainscoting, job hunts.

I cut off all their crusts today

garnished the air with them

tried to drown it in beschamel

and whisked the dried skin away,

watching it fall

onto the shoulders of my sweater,

into the pan of melted butter and rue.

Not never not

no matter how you are

you are never a ghost,

not to me. Light skinned

opaque, the sun can't see

through you. You are

stolid oh solid one. Please don't go

ghostly, go into mossy wisps

receding to the woods.

Hold my hand instead.

Bloom, rest there

Bloom, rest there,

simple and soft, sink down

with petals open for my neighbors to see;

the flower on the balcony

wearing no clothes but its stamen

staining the skin under my nose, brushing

its fair white hair, damning me to hell

each hole I bore through the swell

of those five fingers stretching, bending

in the stillness, in the breeze.

My fathers, there are three of them;

they put on coats

every morning but Friday,

they are fools in slack pants, jeans.

They put on their charcoal coats

the color of campfire,

holy fools in slacks and jeans,

their hands withered, drowsy, tired.

They become charcoal

each year more dried,

flames lick hands so soft,

curling inward for the night.

My fathers are shriveled more

each year, more salt and pepper hair

on hands enflamed and withered old.

They dance inside their lair.

More salt on the potato, on the hair.

With nerves alight, on fire,

they dance inside their lair,

my fathers, walking a tight rope wire

in graying coats and jeans.