even the long-gone
once knew tenderness.

“We were idyllic in our isolation.”

“In the East, it is the cow that animalizes the man. Hence, the native occupies this intermediate space between man and beast, which we term ‘savage.’”

shouting / the same words but in different languages

there is nothing but performance; the language that stretches to capture us all

I begin to feel my body rise / and I can believe / in what freedom must feel like.

To not have had the luxury to think “the world is over,” but to feel it instead.

My grandmother tells me she loved you fiercely
in the way she reaches for me when your name
is spoken.

Thelonious Monk lost (and found) in Paris.

The stones are endlessly weeping in the dark. Or is it
the bird-chatter of rain. O darling, are you writing
another poem about trees? No, not trees but ghosts
that live on trees and their legend of never-let-gos.