[ Excerpt ]

I Was Carried to Ohio in a Swarm

of cataclysms & crises. of catacombs & cats with slick combed-back strands

of what were once thickly coiled afros. in a swarm of floods & flooded wrists

& flocks of old & new homies festooned in some fly shit passed down

from a fading ancestor. hunters & hustlers who hang the trophies

of their hunger or wear them, depending on the season. in a swarm

of loose-lipped prophets & pine trees shaking a fist at people passing by

catching their glance. some might slip the tint off the whip in winter & i’m carried

home by the residue of darkness. from the drive by shooting, a swarm

of dust kicks up & my dog couldn’t dodge the smallest explosion.

i have never wanted someone so dead

that i would roll a window down & let the good air out.

tell them folk to pay me what they owe me in the slang they couldn’t slip

their slow tongues around. the type of sweat that isn’t romantic

unless my people say so & when my people say so

it’s gonna be in a language you can’t hear & wouldn’t understand

if you could. i cannot explain the humidity anymore beyond what i have already said:

i open my mouth and in it, we swim an endless passage.

it isn’t biblical if you still fear drowning, or if you’re not handy with tools.

the story i’ve been told is that, as a boy, i found the dying bird in the brambles

of the backyard & brought it to the kitchen table, trying to pour small drops

of water into its gasping beak. you don’t get to hear the part about who lives

& who dies. where do you think all the feathers in the poems come from.