ggenci160

I tape poems to entry ways, the space above my bed, around the couch and dinner table

my toenail peels off at the end. Bugs huff at our necks, a frenzy of garter snakes

The year miscarried its first few months and then, butterflies land in the flowers.

dinner table talismans against the kind of people we were afraid to become.

arms that embrace and my momma’s eyes and my daddy’s smile and my grandma’s hope

heart beating and hands that hold and voice that bellows and feet that dance

big and thick hair and short legs and scraped knee and healed scar

My body is perfect and imperfect and Black and girl

I was hungry and I was howling, man. It was like stealing the best horse in the herd.

you know? I was sixteen and I was cruising down the highway Hot on the trail to Albuquerque

I stole a blue Impala in Flagstaff the first year they made those automatic windows,

another bowl filled, and the aroma of vitality pollutes the day.

and dark leaves. My vision is adjusted to the shades, the intricacy of the recipe

everything in between. Narrowed into a warm bowl, with an emerald glow

whole geometry. Praise your eight-legged patience. Can you teach me to THE be still? To welcome web

small & diligent body the way it pulls & fastens till a single spoke

hidden within the way you float a line out on the wind & let it latch

harvest mouse as spare row crops stoop outside under the skies fire

A sparrow hawk swoops — glides up to the high wire

to taste but not swallow. Open your mouth and let their power beam outward

whatever you hear. Breathe in jasmine scent to intensify your memories. Pick four small leaves

paste a rose petal on your forehead, and smear a lick of honey on each earlobe to sweeten

trim your sorrow-filled week, to be the eyes that your eyes can’t see out of. With grass dew,

thoughts & unruly feelings with a tiara of thyme. Find small red things,a cranberry or rosehip

make a halo, a wreath, a circlet of bright green aspen leaves. Crown your dismal