Diaspora Sonnets

Diaspora Sonnet 53

The air by the docks smells like old batteriesand the moon rises through with its judgment,

floods the swale above the scene and makes everythingsharp-edged. The shadows of forms more knife-like.

Each boat’s prow a scythe steadily rocking,moored and clean. The sides rub the docks,

suggesting a longing that is mild but constant.Some of us lose our words for such beauty. The cold

and the light and the air’s insistence on uscatching our breaths having travelled on such boats

and their willful enterprise to “wherever she takes me.”The divine and stuporous words we tell ourselves

climbing out of the boats’ bodies—the rainbowedfilm on waters beyond our vision.

Diaspora Sonnet 55

Broth of boiled cloth and acid hands, knucklesraw from wringing suds and swinging denim

by fistfuls up and out of the basin. Grimeof steam and grease stains blotted out. Rows

of hangers on garment conveyors marchingshirt after shirt garnished in plastic and the heat

from the press to flatten out collars and sleeves.In a different country I might have been royalty.

That glow of my skin in the heat, a hidden sealon an envelope. I live in a republic of hangers.

I let the fabrics warm my blistered skin. I letthe presses rejoice in silks and the seersucker blazer.

Inside the roar of the dryer, I can shoutmy name, perfect, sequined, and neatly pressed.

Diaspora Sonnet 56

Those fishbones on a platter, sucked clean. Moreskeletal than sheen—blue porcelain

plates with fishbones. On a white plate, the dishlooks all bone. In times of famine and no

fish at all an empty plate can be allcolors. Small contingencies of fact are

fact. The fat from the eye is/was the sweetmeat. The fried fin, eaten also. The mind

leaves nothing but numb and rind, or sometimesmemories of rind. A remembered whole—

empty platters—no rice for the bowl. Whiteplates bought on thrift can clatter when stacked up

like decks of cards. Blue plates in the sink soakgrease. The fat from frying leaves its ghost trace.

Diaspora Sonnet 57

How best to live your current life? Meadowsopen into other meadows. The past creases

itself into smaller and smaller blankets. Outsidethe hills are yielding mysteries to snow.

I’ve questioned days where nothing can be puttogether into interlocking edges. I’ve questioned

weeks where I’ve seen my father wanderfrom home to home inside the space of a room.

How best to live your current life, you ask?Road maps and gas. Packing just enough to change

from one dry shirt to another. To have enoughchange for a shower and a side-road shelter.

And then the time to fill the dashes on the asphaltwith the cursive of your name, neat as yellow paint.

Diaspora Sonnet 58

This boat is quickly filling with ghosts. Long black hairhangs from their mossy heads. They’ve got no eyes

I see. They wait in kitchens with empty bowls. They goup the stairs and down again. They are themselves a tide.

When I part the curtains they are cut in half, dazzled intoshapes cast by the sunlight. Crosses against their chests,

they dine and wheeze past all the window seamswe’ve sealed with tape. They still whistle. They still

ring the doorbell and set the oven timer to announcetheir cursive contrails. Fog down the halls. Writing

on the mirror. A spin of the dial in the car and I knowcandles burn to end their wicks. Guardrails hold me

to the road. This body—their bodies move their shoesin bitten steps. Paths hewn in broken compass roses.

Diaspora Sonnet 59

Father refreshes the browser. The ruler’sface stretched into yawn. His jeweled

incisor winks as the camera panspast him toward the crowd. Hands

waving as the bodies turn and facethe cordoned bleachers. Confetti and lace

careening down the promenade like hail...