On Anger

The blood blister burst
when I was nine years old:
closed fist, closed heart,
dressed in a Disney dress.

I don't want pity.
I want soft eyes.
I don't want money.
I want love.

I never said it would be easy
opening that fist,
closing it around something warm,
something other than grief.

I never said it would be easy
or beautiful, because I'm neither.
I'm broke and broken.
Those are my crimes.
Leaving, with fists closed:
this is your regret for loving me.
I shoulder your blame,
blisters from the heat.
And yet the anger is always
yours.

Carrier Train

Waiting for light, the ah-ha moment.
It appears at the end of the tracks.
A crack in the jaw, eyes barely open,
I run toward jeopardy.
It's the last thing I see,
my hope, my end.

New York, 1942

Gd doesn't love a broke son.
He can't give back.
Gd doesn't love
the invisible daughter,
giving blwjbs in Harlem.

Gd doesn't love.

Rich men can get into heaven;
rich men own heaven.
The white and the pure
inherit the earth.
The white and the pure
inherit the history.

Trying to collect crumbs
with fingernails, we realize
Gd doesn't love.

Highway wraps around
like a tourniquet:
I'm swollen, but my movement
isn't limited.

The map of your sex,
the veins and arteries crossing, overlapping,
capillaries merging,
remind me of the back roads of desire,
the dead ends of temptation:
your body, my near adventure.

But there's been a crash
by the side of the road
and there's no one here
to identify the body.

Fake

"All together, all alone," rubber bands cutting off the circulation, each digit more numb, only good for counting. Tying rubber bands around my throat, only good for counting.