six children jump Double-Dutch in autumn

rain, and the ropes’ helix is a seventh seeing.

It opens and closes like an eye-

lid and through its quickfire lens the smallest

You never understood the point, the Word
of God in every hotel nightstand. Thought

it heresy. Don’t they know what happens here?
It became your secret fascination, logging

Sometimes, it is the door & a consonant of creaks always

behind it, other times it is just the heart unmasking

itself behind worry’s blur sacristy, a horse bothered about weather.

how often should I sashay in this sackcloth, the sky’s

undone hem of silver, the country that claims me?

every day I am a fugitive traveling on the ship of mother’s

countenance. I stretch towards the emptiness of her eyes,

Every night at six, my parents return from a moon
and dust off their spacesuits at the garage door.

Their commute back is as much work as the mission;
with a well-dented rocket, they keep their distance

NOTE: On March 26, 2018, Jennifer Hart drove herself, her wife, Sarah, and their six adopted Black children off of a Pacific coast cliff in Mendocino, CA, after nearly a decade of documented abuse allegations. Devonte Hart, the 15-year old pictured in this viral photo, is the only child whose body has not been found. All personas are fictionalized.

after Ai

Any tiny sliver of hope
these kids had
at a normal life is gone
gone going gone. At first,

the man ate,
bit right through the sweetbitter of her,
and how could he not—
He swore she begged, didn’t she—

real niggas just multiply, he said, selling himself
to anybody that will buy the pursuit of billions as liberation work.

which I wonder if she ended up wanting to take back
as surely as the first statement has been taken out of context
by every ’90s Black stand-up act you could think of,

and nothing could come easier.

Even my mama beating the black off me
would only make me blacker: no diggity,

Deer asleep on the side of the road. No, deer

dead there as always, preserved in the Book

of Symbols. Deer with its flies and uncanny

arrows in its sides like compass needles, or

And what is it to be made
from the good stuff but to count

your layers spread out before anyone
who would be willing enough

“i got fat bitch pussy, cause fat bitches got the warmest pussies. that's what i got.” -cardi b.

i pray to prevent our bed becoming a resting place,
i heave—sweat, pant, run so she finds me attractive.

I say hunger and mean your hands bitten to boneseed,

bandaged with bedsheet and the night while two states over,

a mouth—ready soil—says your name. Next June’s lover

he blows proud at stadiums
on gamedays both home and away.

alongside piccolo and glockenspiel
he marches into the script noun

for Giovanni Melton (2003-2017), murdered by his father, who didn’t want a gay son

Cruel tumulus fate,
all for sips of spring’s first honey
Each misstep mottles cotton
O cleft birdbath,

I don’t currently want a man, just a boat;

so what I want is a man with a boat,

with the man as vessel.

Maybe I want something easy

at the checkout line. at the seven-eleven.

under the scanner’s rabbit eye. you

call me forth to swallow my core.

you ugly man. you language lecher.