When you lie again
in the street of forgetfulness
smashed beyond recognition
courting the dark avenue,
when you wake to the alien
walls that do not touch
your battered flesh,
your other self
will fall into the locket
of your mind and wait
for truth
A creature without roots
standing on the brink
of private ruin
your voice will not save you
for you have found the power
of destruction
I weep for your lost
self that stands on the edge
of the terrible wood
whose darkness draws
2
If I could I would make
a gift: the magic of souls
spinning in the gr
We swam in the rain-filled gully
one day
three black kids
unmindful of death’s specter:
water snakes
fever
cow dung floating like a drowned corpse,
the level of that ditch
our shoulders’ height,
the water to our asses.
And just over the hill the weeds
bowed like cloistered nuns at vespers.
At eye distance just beyond,
our house’s top formed a gray peak
against the crimson sky.
We remembered our fun for days,
talked about it,
longed for another torrent of rain
so that we could splash again
in that death trap…
