I wish to secede from this union;
a raw bride and a carnivorous groomsman.
This false marriage,
this forced marriage
is consuming the very bitters
of my skin.

I am a hostage of your rhetoric,
a monument to your serial
imperial compulsions,
your jungle booty,
your girl Friday,
your euphemised coco brown burden.

I readily lap up your table scraps
and shrink-wrapped white lies,
gravy boat-sized slave ships
and my own story, revised.
How long can I survive
under the heel of your boots
and the hell of your words?

1. For the children who fall out of windows

Because little Tati is 12
and littler Joakim is 2 and Mommy
is gone. They live inside a Kool-Aid colored,
chicken and broccoli brick tenement. Babysitters cost money.

2. Between Palmetto and Gates

I want to say
Municipal Neglect and a mouthful
about the associations
of Black space.
However, dialoguing about disparities
wastes daylight.

3. The girl who cried, “Policia!”

Crying isn’t enough
when others assume that you are accustomed
to being assaulted, when all the assailants
are said to look the same, when blame
is heavy-handed
and everything is “gang-related.”

Feel free to be offended. I hear
that makes for good poetry.
That and the words

River
Rainbow
Meadow
Fuck
Deoxyribonucleic acid

Poor reader, you read
these words, enunciating each
syllable like a grade school
spelling bee. Using
your inside voice.
Poetry is a soufflé;
full of cheese and milk, never
read loudly.

Pause dramatically here.

I used to write on a Brother word
processor with a thesaurus, always
searching for a better word. The best
word. The way adults spoke. I wrote

stories of orphans with terrible secrets
because I had no terrible secrets.
I had a nanny
named Magoli.
My stuffed animals had first,
middle, and last names.

Poetry is never answering
to your name. Poetry is wearing
a wedding dress to brunch.
With great expectations, we smear
tragedy on our lips and sit
at the foot of Maslow’s pyramid,
painted up like Christmas
whores. I’d rather not write today.

The dreaded
self-conscious monster
Sambo saboteur
I maneuver past
the unfortunate moments
with laughter
I be steady cooning
cripwalking, keep walking
and jiggabooing
on porches and in jungles
I swing past the thinktanks
gulpfuls of hopeful mantras
we shall overcome
our under bites
and pry our top teeth
from our own flesh
My blood runs red
and that middle passage
that I’ve never read
Talk to my jazz hands
and shuffling feets
I speaks to the lowest common
dominator
beneath bowels
and rubble
I don’t know nothing
bout no books

I am the Afro-Latino antichrist hybrid of Makalani and the Cooper girls from San Fernando, Trinidad never been to Tobago.
I am enormous.

I am the Afro-Latina spilled Black tinta tumbling over bite marks and dulce de coco in Santo Domingo de Guzman.
Soy enorme.

I overheard
that he was a poet
slash dreamer

slasher flick
dream-killer
His business card reads

non-believer
ill-fated co-conspirator
and equestrian hero

slash distraction
slash magician
slash delicatessen

blade operator
front load washer
peel the fat back face lifter
I can’t wait to meet him

I secretly wish for disaster
to discover how it would feel

To fall out of the sky
seconds after take off

I see my mother’s face

in every woman’s face

at every bus stop

under every pinned church hat

with plastic flowers glued to its brim

in every grocery store

pushing a cart with one bad wheel

wheeling down Aisle 4

Goya, ethnic foods

I see my mother’s legs

in each set of fishnet stockings

and support hose

helped up and held up

by the control top

into her fleshy middle

I see my mother’s arms

in every arm

with concentric marks in the skin

at the shoulder from vaccinations

I hear her laugh

when I laugh

I’ve never heard her cry

I’m a shitty
two-bit
twelve-cent
poet
and we are both wasting time.
I’m hungry
for your impromptu
dirty dancing
and mushy beans and rice;
Ahhh, inspiration.
The echoes of the conversation
you had with your roommate
and the guilt
I feel
being drunk
tonight when it mattered.
We overdosed
on I love yous.
We overdid it
and dowsed everything we had
in clever one-liners
fake mustaches and eyeliner.
Mimes don’t cry for real
but we all love cliches
parading around like old garbage
in dishwasher-warm Tupperware.
Think of me
when you swallow your spit
and dream about urinating,
when you overdress for the weather
and carry your coat
over your arm
or tied to your waist
and waste the whole day
thinking
about what you should have worn.

Read this
Loudly
Out loud
Let the sounds stick
To the roof of your mouth
House each syllable
In a guttural woof
Or whomp
Never whisper
Always shout