Object Lesson II., and: Women's History, and: New Dictionary, and: Time, and: "It Could Have Been", and: iNdex: a PoeM aBout sex

Object Lesson II

motherfuckerremember the sounddon't be politein your ideasand the steps of your marchmotherfuckernot my favorite wordbut great in the kind ofpoetry you want banned

I did not say nobecause I did notwant it to turn into rape.

Motherfucker, no.Motherfucker, no.Motherfucker, no.

Resounding and resolute.

Women's History

SapphoPhillis WheatleyLilithreclaim wordscroneJoan of ArcIda B. WellsSojourner TruthMerle WooSusan B. AnthonyVirginia WoolfCherríe MoragaGloria AnzaldúaAudre LordePatricia Hill Collinsbell hookswho else?i want a long list poemato continue forwardremember whenyou first heard these names,you felt the edgethe fat middle of your tongue,thick with mine.These names weighed downthat placeon your chest (your heart)So you ground.

New Dictionary

Once queer was a violent wordIt was then a weapon of love.Other words: Let's tryto concoct new things.Let's make a new dictionary

Time

Was it worse for police brutality than right now?

The Radical Brownie asked a question.

"No. We've gone backwards."—Cheryl Dawson, Black Panther Party

We desire time, to tell us it gets better.

You desire time to be humorous, amendable, and courteous.

Time is not on our side.

There is nothing real about progress

I want to define for you, until you define it

yourself.

What is resistance?

Are these words that belong in a poem?

________

I am interested in being dictated by dream

Letting shadows go, and investing in transcendence

Restoration in moonlight, the way my hand

Looks underneath yours

What does history tell us?

________

I met you, 20 years after the movement, and nowYou sleep homeless on the edge of campus. I remember your kind words, do youremember mine? Does the campus remember?Will we? The final two words of this poem:we must.

"It Could Have Been"

(Originally printed in Roar: A Feminist Magazine, 2017)

Title after Gabe Meline's article, "It Could Have Been Any One of Us" on the Ghost Ship Warehouse Fire, 2017

For Griffith, and everyone we lost

Set the flame.Warm the tracks.Let the fire break the cold.

On an Internet video clip, I see a train run through firein ChicagoRepeat again, and elsewhere.

Do not forget, this is whereYour body moves freely, this isWhy we came.

Home. The ship as home. An ill fitting world.My father's ashes in the sea.I struggled to meet him there.He always wanted to live in a shipWe looked through circular windowsBefore he died, I struggled to understandMy relationship to the sea, hunger, and suicide.

Can a city stand in for a good parent?

I left for you because I realized

I was a poet

I left for you because I realized

I was a homosexual

288 · Feminist Formations 30.2

I left for you because

I wanted to ride

to remember you we lay

Hours in the Oakland sun tryingTo write poetryOur queer backs take in the dirt ground our bones wide.At night, you painted my bodyWe melted with the earth,Skin flowers everywhere.

Green, pink, red, and brown.Confession: I still like that combination.Confession: I liked touching you

at the shark pit

we danced into

the early morning

kissing two people at the same time

you learn fast how to take turns

tell me,

let's dismantle,

this ill fitting world, that still can't hold your heart

your heart the size of a small fist.

A small fist relative to what you imagine.

Another way: tell me about how your muscles felt

after we walked through parts of Berkeley for miles

we tried to find a party themed on freedom, still lost, at midnight

you kissed my nose.You will write me a poem to say...