Sister

I hear you when I stop
praying and start listening. It's never
about what I wish
would happen. You say
so we are here now and I
got you.

I hear you after
I've tried everything else outside of myself.
You are not my self
but you are in me.

I know your voice and
I hear you when you say here
I am.

It's not about knowing anything, not
a damn thing.
It's about landing well with open eyes and
and open heart. You say that.

I don't listen until
I have no choice.
Sister, you say, I know.

Oh

Like when
I found out I was smarter than you I
was not smug, it did not
feel good. I felt
the floor fall a little,
the wind blow a little and
sound stopped in my ears.
Time went elastic and
I bounced,
I said inside, oh.
If it turns out well
it's up to me.

Maybe
that's why my shoulders
have always been
so strong.
That's not to say
it went well.
You are both buried
and while mine was just
a flesh wound,
I still finger it whenever I
find myself saying, oh.

Twenty five years and
you can still pull
my yarn, I blame
our triangle on every Joe
I'm smarter or stronger
or quicker than.
Or think I am.

I will not
carry them
as I did you.

Hot, twisting, I slam
the Joes who didn't
know you, don't know
they are also
paying for you.

Did your best? Code for:
I had to do the rest.
Can you hear
The acid tapping of
my not-forgiveness?

I pull my own yarn
finger my own wound
until it bleeds again.

If I am smarter, how
can the dead still beat me.
Wake up, the dead say.
We can only speak if
you mouth the words.

And now for something different. Weird photos. Warning: No technical photographic skill involved.

My Condition Says

Don't get too prosy on me
my condition says,
my art, my gut (six a one). That
prosy shit is so gay. Write
a poem, take that prose and
boil it, no
chew first, swallow and boil
and then start over.
Get to the smelly
acid juice of it.
make it stink good,
like an angry white girl,
Plath, Woolf, maybe every
white girl, I don't know.
Angry at who we are and who
we are not, take that birthright
and boil each word.
Boil the prose and sweet
right out. Stink,
sister, stink.