Black Boy With Fists in Pockets

How much of me need become ash today?
The choice is simple
No matter how the wind howls surrender
as a cop walks by
you remember how you
were told that they were the keepers of fire.
Unpunished Prometheus
They have learned the ways of vultures well

unsheath your hands
watch the greying language of skin
spread and splinter like rivers
tracing the borders of what is rumored
to mean you are alive
 

What The Body Remembers

Yesterday
My body was all salt
Today I am a different
Arrangement of water
Strange, what little history
The body can   preserve

My throat has housed too many storms
But where else does one store
the wreckage of a hundred uninvited ships?

Let the salt do its corrosive labor
Until only the water     remembers
Until my mouth
Becomes the ocean
And I may split
at      will