1
Monsters listened
Patiently as we said our prayers
Waited
For Mommy to leave a kiss on each cheek
Turn off the lights and pull the door shut behind her
Before creeping from their hiding spots—
They masked their footfalls in the settling of the attic;
Peered with bloodshot irises
from the glowing digital clock;
wheezed chill air down my neck
from Nana’s old electric fan
Still, I was more scared to fall asleep
Knowing then I’d be trapped alone in my imagination
The dungeon they called home
2
Windows to a world reverse
wherein She lives and dwells
entrapped behind a glass display
till someone breaks its spell
✠
I look into Her eyes and glimpse
a longing to break free
and then I stop and catch my breath—
She’s looking back at me
0
First we separated them
According to color—
Yellow goes here
Red over there
Blue in this pile
—Before beginning to build
little neighborhoods
of matching houses
__________________
After lunch that day
Felicia told me that if I wanted to play
With her friends
I had to say I was Black—
If I didn’t share the same skin color or label
How could I possibly be one of them?
0
When their yellow-green bulbs
Began to flicker
You’d set us loose
Into the rust-tinged August
Dusk, armed
With eager hands and Mason jars
•
Mesmerized by their undulating
Glow and innocently unaware
Of the secrets a dark night can keep,
My oblivious bare feet tripped
Your senses:
“Stay in the yard, now”
And I’d reluctantly fall
Back
•
Chins fist-propped on the lawn
We’d watch them strobe in clusters
Immured by that transparent boundary
Against the soundtrack of cicadas and the creak
Of your porch swing
While you onlooked knowing
Soon they’d have to be set free
1
Dimpled hands shutter close
Over crinkle-clenched eyelids—
Waiting
Waiting
…
fingers bloom like morning glories
and eyelids like window shades
snap open
Each time startled to find
What I always knew was there
1
Mommy taught me how
To select fruit
Carefully, berries’ smooth, red skin
Unbroken – apples with florets tight
Showed me how to squeeze
Cantaloupes firmly at the base
To make sure they were fresh
And juicy
Ѽ
Meanwhile
Across the produce aisle
The man in the Steeler’s baseball cap and white
t-shirt watched, waited
his turn to take advantage
of cherries new in season and melons ripe
for the picking
1
Past the willow drapes
And thicket screens
A humid womb
♢
The drone of solitude
Ripples in the heat waves and
Algae like green doilies froth
The old pond’s surface
♢
Peering into a patch
Of bare water, my reflection
Is misplaced somewhere
Among crushed Budlight cans
And a loveseat’s carcass
♢
Here is the anti-oasis
♢
Capsulated haven where time is
but a concept, somewhere beyond
These uterine walls
The ocean rumble of highway traffic
Recalls the warble
Of Mommy’s screams and Daddy’s orders
And those before I had even emerged
1
before ballpoint pen
graffiti on bathroom stalls
there was my name
in pencil on pg. 37
of “ramona the pest”
and a tic tac toe-shaped scar
on nana’s cherrywood
dresser
even swaddled like a yolk
in my sack i had to leave
stretch marks
almost instinctive
the urge to impress
even if i do not last
i was Here
0
Smash these pieces, smash them
Harder
Grind them into particles too
Small to trample
Blow them, sneeze them, throw them
Farther
Than the dandelion seeds I used to love
To scatter like memories
In a wind that was never strong enough
