The original version of this poem appeared in Goliath Magazine
There is Truth
Maybe the story
starts with mold
growing from dishes
untouched.
& how people should
touch things.
Speaking of touching,
have you read the one about how a man
could hit a woman, but didn’t?
How he showed bold restraint.
A friend
makes a kind comment
about a woman
posting a picture of herself
because she knew she looked good.
A truth,
called a story,
to make everyone
more comfortable.
Like when a woman
is asked to prove her rape.
To make the story, truth.
Truth:
There are people disappearing.
A silence that moves its mouth.
If a tin-roof
in a hailstorm
is called war,
what is a cop
that moves in
to kill black bodies?
& who are those (?)
that don’t hear the sirens
only ordinary sadness of white men
drowning under desks.
& when it’s not in the news,
& when it’s never in the news,
the children on the street have
always known where to hide
& who is cruel and unsafe.
There is a truth
& not enough
eyes that blink.
poems
-- Graveyard Shift in Banango Lit
-- Apartment 3C 100 Word Story
-- I'm Sorry in Josephine Quarterly
-- 2 Poems in The Mackinac
-- 3 poems in Brickplight
-- 2 Poems in Public Pool
-- 2 Poems in By&By Poetry
-- City Music in Driftwood Press
-- I said to my God in Crab Fat Magazine
The original poem, 'of want,' was published in Vol 8.1 of Prick of the Spindle
I want to talk about
time. Tearing apart.
The way geography
fooled the stove inside
the living room & listen.
I want to know how
I’m supposed to light
in a city captivated by
the midnight thought
puncturing daytime.
Tick, tock masking
distaste of emptiness
inside millions of beds
bruised with want.
‘Cause I don’t want
compensation hunger:
something about someone
else.
About you or an oil
mark flowering inside a
broken refrigerator.
The teapot is screaming.
I want spent time with
tangled limbs.
Absolving lie after lie.
Folding grief into beauty.