january 10

forest fire. my sins and the sins of the fathers are my cage.

drowning like the white rats with their red eyes and aunt jean grimly dropping the trap into her bucket.

the riot police shot at my father as the church burned to the ground and my baby brother sat naked in the bathwater, listening to men break into our house.

mother’s day. seventeen women raised me, not counting margaret, ancient woman in the apartment below, cleansing detroit’s hymnals of jazz, wrinkled cheeks like baklava, paper thin, honey sweet.

my heart of jade, cleansed only by communion cups, my rudder tongue steering us toward another iceberg.

the wallpaper layered so thick that the room has shrunk to the size of a thimble. i sag with the weight of yesteryear while today papers over a new shade of coral and white, placid and teasing.

each creak of the rocking chair reminds of the next earthquake and the last earthquake and the whole history and future of earth fighting earth and tearing itself open.

i tremble beside my window, watching winter's redbirds hover over nothing but snow.