Q Train 3:42 pm

I’m so hot
I feel the steam
rising from my skin
like a sauna
I’ve learned to breathe
in here
but I don’t know
how to shut off
your
voice–

The Capacity To

Your daughter is beautiful
I love the way she sits next
to you on the train
quietly doing her homework
with a blue pencil
while you read from your
pink kindle.

When she’s done with her work
and you’ve put away her plastic
orange travel desk
into her backpack
and realize she’s just sitting
big brown eyes blinking
you take a moment to show
her how to use the kindle
an electronic device
a tool for reading
an invention made for comfort
a contraption you are
now using for mother/daughter
bonding

and I marvel at the simplicity
of the exchange

it could be anything
how to iron
how to read
how to churn butter
how to knit
how to conquer the mind
how to take over the world
how to survive in a patriarchal
society when you’re “only” a girl–

and this is how we sustain
a timeless thread
throughout the ages
forming soft links and chains
to our ancestors
molding new ones
bequeathed to posterity–

and me
a part of that too
who knew
I had the capacity to–

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Baby Fruit

Tiny baby
sitting in
the womb
growing into
different shapes
Last week
you were a prune
This week you
are a lime
I don’t know
what you will be
next week
but still inside
me
morphing
into something beautiful
and sparkly
and yummy
A bigger
sized
fruit.

Wake Me Up

Like a plastic bag
over my head
wake me up
when this is
over

Kingdom of Heaven

How do I
do we
exactly
carry on?
Tormented by the
pictures in my
mind
the what ifs
the could haves
and the should I have just…?
And so
I call myself to
remember
to harken on a noble
and learned man’s
words
that
That
is not our faith
and to find solace
in knowing
he is now
with his mother
resting peacefully
in the kingdom
of Heaven.

Exposed Feet

Early morning rise
cat sniffing my exposed feet
cover them quickly–

Okay With That

Loving you from a distance
is so difficult
I’m learning to let go
and hang on
and let go
and hang on
and just
eventually
let
fucking
go.
I don’t know how much longer this will be
or how much longer this will take
I know for sure, though
that I can’t fake it anymore
and if that means
we never meet again
or talk as dear and loving friends
I’m okay with that
I think
I am
okay
with
that.

Submit to This Shit

Outside of the hospital
they ask her if
she wants to sit in a wheelchair,
symbolizing her disability
marking her inability to take care
of her beautiful, transforming
body
before she potentially steps
foot in the door.
They tell her
she cannot wear
her own clothes
She cannot light
her own candle
or smell her own
smells
Efficiently
she’s strapped to machines
monitoring her progress
the umbilical cord to the
patriarchal, technocratic
institution
She is thus a machine
unable to function naturally
organically
as if her divine female energy
her internal, rhythmic clock
is somehow sub par–
She is informed to eat
food she does not know
sleep in a bed
she does not know
when all she wants to do
is walk to halls
feel the force
embrace the change–
but no–
and so we watch the machines
instead of her beautiful, glowing face
as she is so inappropriately
approbated to lie
flat on her back
another marker of her feeble
existence
the doctor waiting
standing
higher than she
on the other end
not by her side
nor by her heart
waiting for the factory
to pump out its product
to reestablish new life
into the system
a number before a name
setting timers for the universe to
do it’s work
a baby dead before it’s born
the invisible umbilical cord
wrapped around everyone’s neck
stripping her
Mother
of the miracle
of communal
ancestral
guttural
birth–
communicating subconsciously
that we submit to you
in birth
We Submit
to this
Unholy
Ungodly
Unnatural
shit–
In Birth.

Prayer, Friday Morning, 7:48 am

When pain outweighs the pleasure
and life seems out of place
we can call on all the Saviors,
to save our fall from grace

When we find ourselves in trouble
with nary a friend to call
we can seek the help of Martyrs
who seem to have done it all

And when we think there is no hope
and no one understands,
there’s often truth hidden amongst
the Saints who’ve walked this land–

Their teachings remain eternal
within our books, within our blood
mercilessly bonding us to our solid
stake amid the deafening floods–

Here, this time I call to you again
to nurture me in your womb
until I come to accept the duality
that life’s synonymous with the tomb–

And so, to send a bittersweet goodbye
and close this elegy
I pray that you have not died in vain
and we can honor your legacy–

Terrible Cries

The roar of the underground
subway drowns out your
baby’s terrible and annoying
cries

All I can scream in
my head is
“Shut up!”
“Shut.
Up.”

What is it about your cries
that curls my blood
makes my skin crawl
turns my peace to dust
and a favorable memory?

And just as I’ve completed
my previous line
I’ve failed to realize
and it’s only now
that I don’t hear his cries
and the once terrible mother
wins the medal for
“Getting the kid to stop”–

Still the odor pervades,
the stench of death
and bad breath
fills my nostrils
as I bury my head
in my black, wool scarf–