Poème

Today is Dominique’s birthday.
I forgot to get her anything.
Fish and rice for dinner tonight.
I really hope Romain
takes his bath.
He bit my ankle earlier so I
dragged him into Adrien’s room
and left him there.
I forgot to pick up the money for the water,
earlier,
so I just made a withdrawal
and bought it.
Romain was annoyed,
but I gave him a 7Up
so he was pacified.
Taxi drivers are total assholes.
You’d think they’d be grateful to have fares.
But no.

 

Annie Skew Fang

I’m sorry about how I call you like a lost lamb
cut from the mother tongue
I’m sorry fuh these parts,
stretched out like an open womb
laid bare like Eve.
don’t mean to show that
You’re a tonic
a panacea out among the gallows
striking when you deem the time ripe
a rough cut slathered o’er the brine
Brilliant, twinkling, shallow
Mud on my name, on the flat cake.

Scratched from Hosanna’s sprained foot
raging across the plains
splat, Spartan down, right tried to do it
failed, splutching through the pink.

 

sh hhh–

I think of friends in terms of color groups.
                                                                    

                                                                                           I assume the flies have settled.

 

Poor Little Function Words, I’ll Give You Somewhere to Go!

The the turned to the by and uttered

colorly, “Stop thrashing to me!”

And an on upped the wharf,

flogging slowly,

cradling a naive of

in her too.

 

I am in the Passenger Seat of a Chevy Suburban

The gendered aspects of conversation

are perhaps a good

jumping-off point

The business nodes of

analytical seminal (meaning semen)

talking-pants

But back to the gender,

I have serious points to make

seriously

I am very serious, too serious to be

taken at all seriously -

go to your corner!

 

Unfortunately

Kissing someone

is a delightful method

of avoiding them.

 

Extempore

The running water in the stream in my aunt’s cabin
Flows over the kitchen table, drenching
My brother in sweet moss and flowing silently
Through the kitchen looking for me,
Covering each family member one by one
It reaches me and flows up over my neck
Cascading down my back in wet ringlets
Flowers grow from my eyes
And I lie in the water and am swept out to sea.

 

January

I have forgotten how to read and write,
I have forgotten
how to smile and say “thank you”
how to wash my hands,
chew on a mint leaf
embrace you.
I have forgotten how to take my medicine
how to learn new things
how to wink at the moon the first Thursday
of the new month
I have forgotten these things
I have forgotten
how to read and write.

 

India

So many secrets in this world

and I

want to uncover them all.

Isn’t that why we do anything?

The banyan trees are getting louder.

 

Color

Out of the wind I fly

High on my bicycle

The sky, tonight, was that kind of blue you find only in Dutch harbors

And the clouds drifting across it said nothing to me, nothing

Harmful or wonderful, nothing

At all, and that was just fine.

 
I spied a cat or a night monster

Crouching by a tire in the darkness

He watched me as I flew by.