Whirlpool. Cesspool. Wordfool. Fulfill. Falafel. Waffle. Quaffle.
Noise. Background. Foreground. Underground. All around. Basset Hound. Lost and Found. Lost is Found. Mapping sound. Sound. Soooouund.
Swipe. Swoop. Switch. Saw. Sound.
Sea. Swirl. Swill. Swan. Sound. Song.
Wordfool. Woodtool. Toadstool. Toadstole. Thievery. Livery. Live very. Library.
This is just the start of probably nothing
Which is actually how anything always begins
i'd rather something edgy:
fingernails or cleavage
or blossoms on a fig tree
not this.
i don't want this
running through
all my best stories y lies.
i don't want my working metaphor
to be my body
or invisibility
or skin or fat or size
don't want consumption
don't want eating
don't want to swallow
each emotion
don't want food
expansion
bloating
growth
i do not
want
to feed
on this
metaphor
but i
am a poet
& this is
the meal
it doesn't matter
if you say queer
or gay or femme
or dyke
i am not insecure
about who i love
or what that
makes me
my only anxiety
comes from your
silent assumptions
so sure
that all those words
you'd never use
don't apply
my children's eyes
I need to do more writing. The best thing for me is to just write without worry about content, style, whether or not it sucks, whether or not it is actually painful to a reader. So just let it be. And I'll see if this gets me writing.
Glitter can fall up
but first it must pour down
sparkle, ripple, shimmer
pour out and across
shining waterfall fall
down down
onto the table.
Now we crouch
just below
lips looking upwards
b l o w
glitter can fly
these are my children.
they did not hatch out of the earth
or a marriage
or a marriage bed.
they are my children.
they were created in my body
in a loving and holy way
with this woman.
I would not have these children
without her.
She is their mother.
My companion in creation.
My partner in the
everyday everything
of their lives.
& her
absence
in these
photographs
shames
me.
You may recognize mi chiquita.
don't tell her i posted her pic, eh?
I unbelievably love her.
she once was
just as small
as this
but this was
never all she
was & now
she is the sum
of all the world
for me &
all that will ever be
for me is
changed by her
even when she
was as
small
as this
& i am
left to
wonder how
the world
may change
again &
again by one
beginning
as small
& possible
as this
Move some words around
With your hands or your tongue or your mind
Leave a slip of poetry behind you at lunch
on top of the oranges at the store
mailed in with the bills
scrawled onto the outside of your child's diaper
slipped into the yellow pages
in between the stack of napkins at the coffee shop
She's been around the block, poetry,
Isn't waiting to be sacrificed or saved
& knows she'll be just fine
She worries more about the world
making it through each day
so bring her home
to meet your in-laws
or drop her off in
strange neighborhood
See what poetry might do
you can tell when
the fishnets are
all for show
no intent behind
the loops and strands
hanging loose
untied
but then there are
times
such bindings are
not dramatic
& you are sure
as she is
& you wonder,
how exactly would i
unhook all that lace
or maybe just
go through it
bite
right into
the zest
your body looked long
all brown & naked & joyous.
you flipped and splished
like a fish in a stream
my soapy hands ran over
your wild arms & swimming legs
the bottoms of your feet &
the bottom of your bottom
i washed your shoulders
your soft belly & chest
your round cheeks
washed all the sticky from your hands,
between each finger
&
made my constant wish
that gentle touch
only gentle,
welcome touch
would come to
each part of you
Bodies on the margins have always had to fight for integrity.
Untidy, abnormal, non-compliant, oppositional bodies.
Bodies that can't be ignored when they're too big or small or too female or too ambiguous or too uncaring of gender rules altogether or too mobile in a power chair or too loud with their sign language or too brown or too black or too difficult to categorize or too fertile/infertile or too damn many of the above all at once.
Choice is the insistence on my body
My queer
fat
woman
body
My quasi-colored body
I use my body
in the service of these
illegal border crossings
I spill over
the sides of my seat
on a plane
I am a
passing
threat
toowhiteortoobrown
for you
I lay as a woman
with a woman
unscripted
in a world
that denies us
My choice
My daily choice
Is not solely about
abortion
It is that
this body
is
my body
even as it is
just as it is
without
anybody's
permission
Watching the moon
above me
waiting for blood
below me
will my body
again master
the secret of
a blood orange?
not just blood
but seeds
fruit
growth
i have an appointment at the fertility clinic for a consultation. we are getting ready to go again, inshallah. if anyone has a menstruation calendar widget send it my way, won't you?
Two more hours of this meeting. . . Just two more hours.
If Joe is reading this, don't be fearful that I'll go all poetry on your ass for too long.
It's just the place that I'm in now.
heading home
para khubz
heading home
with gifts
for my girlchild:
hotel soap
an individual
box of cheerios,
my arms,
my voice,
my presence,
my self
heading home
para Scully
heading home
towards my
woman
who held up
the sky &
held me
together
from so far
away.
heading home
to hold her.
heading home
para me
heading home
back towards
myself
i will rest
with my people
i will be close
& tired
& finally
finally
home
Some poems are written in ink or out loud.
Some poems you don't whisper to anyone or even copy off scratch paper.
This blog occupies a space between performance and privacy for me
So I'm posting this anyway. You can blame mango tribe if you like.
i
my breasts are humming
full of milk
tender
sore
heavy
i am my own metaphor
ii
i am missing our ritual
where i nourish her
and she
me
she welcomed me
and i
her
warm milk for
a warm embrace
iii
when we began
it was constant
every hour
half hour
every minute
every cry
and then each whim became
a ritual
a greeting
a way to share certain moments
morning, naptime
a before & after dinner snack
a way to get through
long tired nights
then came teeth
cows milk
tugging at my blouse
and she learned to nap instead
with backrubs
while patting my breasts
nostalgically
and now even the morning
and the evening
are faced without.
without my milk.
without me.
instead she has
her own self
her own body
in this new &
brave way
iv
this is not our first separation
that was more dramatic
i pushed her out of my body
and i wept & i bled
gazing at her
with flooded feelings
of joy & fear
my pregnancy ended
my girlchild began
distance was required
to simply meet her
v
and now more distance
if motherhood is this process
of moving her into the world
i have just dilated to 2 centimeters.
there will be more
(like crowning)
but this is enough for now
frightening & uncomfortable & necessary
& not really the end of anything
it was just a hotdog
& she certainly enjoyed it.
& i know it was
just a hotdog
too humble
to have any
representations
agendas or
hidden meanings.
all traces of conspiracy
have surely been
processed out.
she ate it
with relish
(with mustard, actually)
she devoured it
inhaled it
she fully
consumed it.
& i know it is
just a hotdog
but i am really
worrying more about
what will consume her
sweet child,
we have had our first year together.
you have taught me so much about myself, mothering, tu mama and most especially about you.
who will this person be? we kept asking each other this time last year.
and what have we learned?
