I FEEL LIKE IF I'M NOT WRITING POLITICAL POEMS I'M WASTING MY TIME SO I MADE THIS CONTAINER FOR MYSELF IN WHICH NOT TO BE POLITICAL

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

The first thing I thought this morning was mayonnaise would be a good name for a dog.
I could scream Mayonnaise! Mayonnaise, Mayonnaise! into the dark of my backyard.

Whenever anybody in my life travels anywhere the only thing I ask them is
what was the best thing you ate? Tobias keeps a clog keychain
on his keys that reminds him of French fries he ate in Amsterdam.

On Saturday he dumped a bag of individually wrapped chocolates
onto my bed and not thinking we laid down and crushed all ten pieces.
Repeatedly. Then we shared a melted, flat Ferraro Rocher.

Outside my apartment someone set a tin of breadcrumbs and rocks,
the breadcrumbs to eat and the rocks to hold down the tin.

Windsor, Connecticut was one of a handful of towns in the country where, in the 2000 Census,
median income for black households was larger than white households and I was a girl.

It rained and I remembered cutting earth worms in half with the plastic shovel in the Montessori sandbox.
I broke my arm skipping monkey bars on that playground. I was never a girl who shared.

I was wearing the knit sweater with the purple whales and I was warm.
A woman screamed: Your hair! Your sweater! A texture paradise!

Someone told me they’re calling the other Sasha at work White Sasha.

My fingers pruned the second I stepped in the shower and it scared me.
All my other fears are political. I was never a girl.

Colleen called, I’m in town, my Dad had the best possible heart attack.
He walked over to the trainer, sat down and said I’m having a heart attack.

The men working at the barber shop turned up the light so I could read while I waited for the hair braider.
When I’m getting my hair braided, I get to miss my grandmother and be in physical pain at the same time.

My sister visited Tuesday because she had Lincoln’s birthday off. Did he even do anything
other than get shot?
I was so proud of myself I said not really! I tossed my scarf over my shoulder and
kept walking.