To be published in the December, 2026 issue of Does It Have Pockets 

Biographical

It’s kind of risky writing a memoir, when you are really part of a larger universe. – Questlove

my phlegmy intonation, my greyback assurance,
only distracts from what actually was.
 
in the random shipwreck we’ve become
isn’t it time to tell the truth?
both static surfaces and a surging tide
hide the facts and hold them hostage.
 
now is the time of our summation
now is a reckoning on the rafts loosed on the old currents
now is the merit of losing the way.
 
so let’s kidnap a presentation,
count the syllables in shadows and ransom the rimes,
ready the tools, use the apparatus of erased outlines
and blink twice if you need more time sailing south.
use all the utensils and containers that form you
and refuse the screens that stretch duct tape
on your ears, eyes, and mouth.
 
*
a camara pivots on its tripod.
a candid exposure of journal entries. a composed lifeworld.
many boats are launched to examine these seaworthy ambitions. 
 
this sounds like what you think of when you think of survival. 
this looks like the disappointments in love you fear is your future. 
this is a chest-pounding performance that you hope finally ends the tyranny of your father.
this is the crippling declension that limns your mother’s subtle
and permanent disappointments in you.
a star map of constellations all in the shape of
those silvered wild horses your mother never rode.
(but never doubt the power of show ponies in moonlight).
 
parade-ready ostentation is shaped by our elisions,
and he who shapes us saddles us with vintage abstractions
and leaves us with this rust-encrusted astrolabe --
he ransoms our punishment,
did I say ransom? I meant rations.
 
*
don’t listen to the famous friends who recommend revolts,
but do heed the sharper edges of the common era
and its stories, which cut us, winnow us, with scalpels so unknown,
so mellifluous, so rabbinical, so sharp in their edges
that no blood will run from these, our broken ships.
 
leftover patterns chop up our attention spans,
salad days scuttled across the floor of short chapters,
sirens warn of jagged days caught on the rocks,
the deep amputations, life’s bit pieces, still strut on the quarterdeck.
as walk-on roles, monologs and diatribes are woven into ropes
flung into the heavens as nets
to capture the birds of prey which
bore us here.
natal trophies kept safely, pressed in the pages
of the ragged story of our hours, like flowers found flattened
in the pages of gravity, the weight of our lunacy zipped up
in body bags, our lockstep habits fly out under this canvas cover
to the forgiving waves, to the celestial lost and found.
 
*
claw on your regrets –
the chart your hands now hold is made from triangulated stars.
the release you expected comes too late
and the ear sliced off to confirm your fate
flies in the slovenly winds of your wild DNA
and your habits are buried in the brine in cracked jars.
 
the voyage ends as it begins,
you were never going to tell the truth
because you have not made it yet.