The world was a changed thing / a variant of its former self, and you were / A new ripple in the miles-deep pool of time, / that one breath strumming the tender / Chords of the system.
Dear sudden inspiration, creeping uncertainty, tiny splinter of glass, / sometimes you cannot be enough.
In a time lapse, nothing happens smoothly. / Red horns quake as they splinter / from limbs on the bottlebrush.
Do I directly benefit from the enslavement and genocide of the original people of this land? Absolutely.
To Cumin, Saffron, and Star Anise, sisters / of the roasted goat and rice ritual, daughters / of smoke and gossip, glowing and bloodwarm
I was begging / for some grandeur even if it meant / a little blood or whole limb
a rooster crows from a neighbor’s backyard / pinche gallo, Abuelo spits, looks quick / to see if i wake from the noise / of Spring
if you believe me to be your enemy know this I accept
under the dark sitting pretty / on the patch of hardwood floor / where confession / and callousness meet
The water flows through hollow bones and returns / as a song. It sounds familiar in the beginning / Then always changes.
The people behind bars are captives of war / The people stolen into camps and cages / speak it plain
some days my own womb shivers at the thought of / my black ass children being thrown / against any wall
the ones you call those frickin’ Ayrabs, the ones / who hold hands with / kiss cheeks with those they call / habibi & isn’t every habibi is a mis/-translation of? habibi
“Every interaction between adult siblings presents a chance to get more clarity about the past. Hopefully, we’re able to seize at least some of these chances.”
“I wrote much of the story listening to jazz, including the title song, for inspiration on how to shift without imposing too much of a structure.”
I claw / against the syrup to love other men / for whom, bless them, a bird is just / a bird.
