because you asked me your first word /
& i said i didn’t know /
& i could have told you a good lie /
& made that a small poem we share.
“Most of the Children Who Lived in This House Are Dead. As a Child I Lived Here. Therefore I Am Dead" and Three Poems
My body no longer
RECENTLY PUBLISHED
in the room that it happens
in the room / i am prescribed / anger / unemployment / broken / back / doors / hooded
/ property / value / algorithmic // blackness
follow the moon
maybe i wake and feel the wind move through my body
/ but she reminds me what love lives in this skin, / says stay. says stay anyways.
The Stranger’s Guide to Brothels of Philadelphia, 1849
but when you are not visiting they amuse
one another even more
you wouldn’t believe it stranger
the things of which these women are capable
Occupation
I doubt these empty pockets
could produce a grave
or plot of land
or shovel—my fingers
cannot penetrate this
scorched, mountainous earth:
and always,
there is hunger.
Gratitude
Let me stretch my mouth wide /
as a summer afternoon /
and say it loud, say it sticky /
say the days and their yellow hands / and the air so open / you could walk inside it
