Delenda Est Joshua

Please put your storms

back inside of me. In order for me to thrive

I must disappear entirely into the horizon

Blue Note

We packed a basket of blue speckled dishes and carried it
to the bank. My casting shade and I both heard it—a sound

like a cellarful of cellos coming from under water—the roof
of the reef—and the heavy cement bodies had the moon-

glistened surface of water that mirrors the stars and the dishes.

The Medium

At the end of this night, you will find the place to lie down

and be still at last, hosts coming alive like trees in a fairy tale

The Plain Truth

Translated from the Spanish by Julia Leverone

Wulf and Eadwacer/Daylight Is Our Evidence

Ode to a Pronoun

knew what a muthaphuka

on the porch

in a suit meant for them      it

Self-Portrait in Stone and Flesh

Before the war, my father slid shoehorns between the lips of discount loafers and socked heels.

If the shoe fits, so the story goes, the true identity of the cinder-shrouded girl is known.

Poem with Newness and Sugar Babies

I’ve had a Dad I’ve called “Dad”           

        but I’ve also had a “Daddy” and the girls who’ve gotten flowers at work,
        celebrated their birthdays in Vegas, will tell you that those two aren’t
        the same thing.                        At all.                         

NO ONE COULD SEE THE VAST CROWD

“I am shouting
up at a distant apartment window trying
to provoke any action from a
complacent person in power.”

from White: An Abstract

This book documents white American identity as it occurs in everyday moments of a life

Two Poems

I threw away the butcher knife
my husband brought into our marriage        

Crossroad

In memory of Mahasweta Devi

Art of Severance

Severance is the science of separation.

Cemetery Love

I wish to be everything
and nothing I want nothing
but to speak French
glibly or to live both in her
arms and elsewhere is this mood