- Certainty
- Sighted
- The Truth, Nothing But
- After Katrina
- Saigon
Certainty
Without traveling to Nashville
I still know that a boy there falls
piecemeal
into women’s clothes
that in New Orleans
those overtaken by the water
rose inside
that water
Jehovah smells of mint?
Allah of gunpowder?
No
Even I recognize love failing
in ways it must
Sighted
Nature poet handling his plume
Urban poet his switchblade
Each with wings unfolding in their hands
One travels the boned corset of cactus
sky lifting its hoopskirt to a meringue of stars
The other eulogizes children fallen from loveliness filed
into caskets
Both behold faces turning to see
and be seen
They scatter the broken mirror everywhere
The Truth, Nothing But
for Elvis
Little Richard was angry for years
He’d given up the Gospel
to somebody white and pretty
who kept begging in that sexy drawl
heavier
than a roll of quarters
Show me how to turn my bones
to brown sugar
I wanna be sweet
I wanna be sweet
After Katrina
There's no Sabbath in this house
Just work
The black of garbage bags
yellow-cinched throats opening
to gloved hands
Black tombs along the road now
proof she knew to cherish
the passing things
even those muted before the water came
before the mold's grotesquerie
and the wooden house choked on bones
My aunt wades through the wreckage failing
no matter how hard she tries
at letting go
I look on glad at her failing
her slow rites
fingering what she'd once been given to care for
The waistbands of her husband's briefs
elastic as memory
the blank stare of rotted drawers
their irises of folded linen still
smelling of soap and wood
and clean hands
Daylight through these silent windows
and I'm sure now Today is Sabbath
the work we do, prayer
I know what she releases into the garbage bags
shiny like wet skins of seals
beached on the shore of this house
Saigon
He masturbates me under
a clean white towel
I've come for the metaphor
above the entrance
Golden Smile
And isn't this why
we fought in Vietnam
the commerce between us
baby oil unifying skins
the opal of us shimmering
before my shot of silver later
the shower's steam thick
among locals and foreigners
satisfied with such extravagance
for so cheap
The dollar is strong
Currency of the weak
