Keepsake


When I was seven the 
neighbors across the street 
scared me. They 
kept to themselves most 
of the 
time. They had 
no kids, 
no nearby kin, 
no car, 
no criminal records, 
no nothing. 

He would sit 
on the porch, rocking 
back and 
forth 
in his chair as his 
bones cooked 
in the sun. She would 
stare from 
behind intricate stained- 
glass windows, gritting her 
shark teeth to tiny 
nubs against the 
sill. 

They were quiet folk; 
never caused a row, 
never left their lights
on too long, 
smiled when talked to and 
shook hands with conviction. 
They kept a bible on their
front step in case anyone had 
lost their way.

I tried picking it up 
once. "Son," he 
said, not moving from
his chair, 
"between you an' me; they're all 
lies." 
I said yessir and 
scurried away, legs 
weak at the joints. 

I opened the 
book when I got home, but 
it was empty. 
Flipped through 
until the last page; 
written there in 
graphite clockwork dormouse 
handwriting, delicate, was 
"God loves you." 

I tried giving it back the next 
day, but 
the house was an empty 
nest, 
its ribs forever 
expanding 
in a long, drawn-out 
sigh that just never 
came.



Mama 
Part 1

I.

Mama always sat so pretty
so porcelain,
not rocking in
her rocking chair.
Mama always read
so much Sylvia
I think she was Sylvia,
with her grey smock 
and her black polished shoes,
with cakes on the windowsill
and fathers made of lead
planting geraniums in her skull.

II.

Mama always liked music
music
spoken
sung
Bob Dylan
Louis Armstrong
music bleeding through
pink walls
Duke Ellington
Jimi Hendrix
music leaking onto
the shores of the cosmic ocean
Let’s have a party
she said
Let’s have a party
and invite our neighbors 
and play music
good music
and stick telephone wire
through the gaps in our 
glass teeth.

III.

Mama always laughed so nicely
so softly,
as if her lungs might shatter
if she were too loud. 
Mama always smiled
so tightly
with veins of Venus
tracing her trachea,
with a Christmas light cord
threading through her soul — 
her bare insides,
her tender eyeballs,
her burnt knees,
her soft paper heart smelling
slightly of bougainvillea — 
everything illuminated. 





My Mother


My mother isn’t like the 
others; she’s not afraid 
of cooking with the 
radio on. She leaves 
the door open and swings her 
hips to the latest tunes. She  
wears shiny pearls and red 
lipstick like the folk in 
the movies, even
if she doesn’t go out often or
at all. She paints her nails, wears
high heels, talks about
all the beautiful people on TV 
with perfect white teeth and
big doe eyes and 
long black lashes.
 
My mother, with her Arab shawl
and defiant eyes, with her
slight figure and hidden
bruises. 

My mother paints 
beautiful landscapes, using 
naked bodies as canvas. 
My mother dances like candlewax
but spends nights throwing 
up in the bathroom. My mother
is not afraid to drive, to speak, to think,
to be a woman.
my mother is not afraid
to exist.