Kitchen Noise, a poem

Daddy wanted steak for dinner.Momma wanted fish.And once they started arguingIt sounded quite like this: “I don’t want no fish, we’d faint in here,and fish stinks up the house.””Well ‘less you got money for rent and steak,Mr. Randall will put...

Fall exhales, a poem

like my big-armedgrandmother,seated in her chair,scanning all her children, remembering the days she kepttheir faces neat, their chicken fried,bandaging their cuts, and ushering them through the forever dark, attending ceremonies and graduations on findingIt’s a boy...

Recollections, a poem

We sit herethigh to thighin the lap ofthis impossibleBlack christmasmy mother and sister-mothers to my rightmy father five yearsflown somewherein a sanctuaryof souls We joke and laughabout him fondlinghis gray-less goateeloving on mirrorsbeing filled withjolly...