If you tried
Even I know
more
about these children
every day that I am
here
pouring anything
especially tears
into paper cups.
You say:
there is no room
for skin like mine
in this game-
“tell me how
bonds and braids
are to be made
with foreign fingers”-
and climb into my open rage
with brown-knuckled hands,
and peer around
at what is missing
as if i were
an empty room.
Girls
All the time
I am wishing
for gentler women
than the ones that I have known.
Hall Pass
I lose them to thirst,
to backpacks
misplaced in the empty gym.
I lose them to the fear
of a child’s cruel gaze or
staying someplace for too long.
I lose them to amputated words
flashing in their laps
beneath the empty desk
and
phone calls from whoever
left the stove on.
I lose them to the millions
of missing words between
myself and them,
and to the hot, broken streets
outside
which offer
what I cannot.
