“I told myself, Thank goodness those poets proclaimed Black is beautiful, because now I can talk about how Black is everything.”

I am learning how to sleep
                  again, to love
the descent, or is it,

lying here, a rising up
                  to summit
where sleep wanders

It’s a strange place
                 to try & find
God—inside

The world is your lawyer.
Pawn-shop pearls.
Hair like telegraph wire.

There are days I can understand
why you would want to board
broad back of some ship