There is no crayon color for how
to express grief. My mother keeps making
oatmeal and bananas for breakfast. The children
in TV shows are always hungry
but never eat. We are taught to leave the table with
permission from a lord. I burn everything the day
she loses a baby. They’ve strapped
a bone to the bed. I don’t know the story
about the green line moving up
and down, getting toxic with gravity.
My two-day lover is a drug dealer, doesn’t
wear a ring, tells me about his wife
with one leg. But he feels good and I want to
sweat. He slinks off my silk. It’s dangling behind
my back and it’s empty how quickly
I am able to part the earth
like a yellow cow in a zebra skirt.
Sometimes I feel bad about his white
on my pussy, or his belly button and hair
beside my ear. When my father wants to be
gentle with my mother, he fries eggs.
In another language, he teaches me
how to serve the rice grains from the floor.
He says when a face is compressed in a dark place,
the sound is little.