Grief might be easy if there wasn't still such beauty--would be far simpler if the silver maple didn't thrust its leaves into flame,trusting that springwill find it again.

It never ends, the bruise of being

A quiet snowglobe of pain I want to shake. While the flakes fall like ash we race the train to reach the place Emmett Till last whistled or smiled or did nothing.

The apocalypse sounds like this-- black men breaking in to steal back the thing once stole from them.

There are gods of fertility, corn, childbirth, & police brutality--this last is offered praise & sacrifice near weekly & still cannot be sated

Like grass in rain, my dead grow at an amazing rate.

Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die to get there.

A shack made of ribs. A house made of out. A car made of rust. A smile made of doubt.

It's death there is no cure for-- life the long disease. If we're lucky. Otherwise, short trip beyond. And below.