In Orlando

My hair is heavy, bittersweet from shea butter,its fat sleeps on my cupid’s bow.My hair is heavy but my clothes are pounds beneathwet leather more frightening in the dark.Which weighs more?The smell of open boneor the weight of its white?What would they find firstif I drowned on this boardwalk:the juniper from mother’s sweat or bonefrom father’s evening calm.

A couple stands beneath a palm tree.I look past, smile and keep walking barefootthrough drumming Floridian torrents.He comes first, like saxophonethen she follows like tambourine.We smile—teeth in fatpretend not to let each other drown—to hold each other’s head up high,like the second time in water afterour mothers’ red birth.We wade by width of smilewe float from fat on teeth andfind fingers through horns of laugher.

It’s dark, evening is cutflickering yellow wound.We didn’t drown,never had to use our mother’sfemur as boats.It’s quiet as we use legs again.I still don’t know where my bonesare, where family bornewhat’s heavier—the ghostsor my wet flesh.Sometimes I can still hearhumming without bruisingof the eardrums—as if a motherwould ever sing without mourning.