Words
‘Hope and the Odds Make Poor Bedfellows,’ JL
The celebration in Wuhan is a galaxy of lights.The temporary hospitals are torn down, the mallsare reopened. A man fixes his daughter’s maskby a...
Postscript
Covid – year two. I no longer live within myformer parameters.Sleep comes in waves per night as does dream.
Some days the sun sings I’m...
TWO MODELS
“Game recognises game”
Popular saying Used in someBlack people’sConversations
Normally blurted outWhen one seesTheir best qualitiesIn another.
Example given:
Back in the 1950s,A FloridaCheesecake modelDidn’t want toLimit herself to...
Turnaround
One hundred and eightyDegree turnaroundMade several timesIn one lifetime—
From numbers runner and burglarBreaking into mansions of moneyed White menTo writer and Muslim messengerReaching into...
Death-Bridge Keeper’s OTHER Five Questions (THREE Questions!)
To WHAT,
from what,
is time a bridge?
Of WHO
and WHAT
is that bridge a carrier?
To WHAT
do the people
and things
the bridge carries
across
and back
throw up
a collective
— and insurmountable —
BarRRier???
Born...
Love letter to the corn dog at River and Woods
A bite into you
is a bite into late backyard nights
where summer breezes bring you
the scents of swaying cornfields
and the laughter of friends
and the...
Last Night
what does everyone want to do
for their last night on earth
walk the high wire
bend over backwards
look up at the stars until they
start to look...
September Dawn
The swift and cold pre-autumn rain,
Will not, dear life, have come in vain.
The last burst of green life given
In dried beds of aged creeks...
An Ode to the Sounds of Blackness
When Ray Charles asked, “Come live with me and won’t you be my love?” Gladys said she’s leaving to be with him On a midnight train...
Waiting for Spring
Crows and snow
a tethered world
monochromatic
static, white noise
of sight like floaters,
skittery images through
flakes the size of quarters,
and feathered balls of birds
sitting it out on sugared...
