Poetry

Digging in dregs of trash
to find the bird my father needed
to get well, I tore a vanishing 
line across the length of my palm.

Tell me you’re that somebody
who gets pregnant after living one month in an orphanage. 
Tell me you’re the one who has your baby a year later 

How long I’ve dreamt of you, teenaged and long-legged, lying on our porch, 
your mud-speckled sandals kicked off to the side, watching a tree slowly split 

We found ourselves without our grandfather. We found ourselves faced 
with stacks of naked women and reels of naked women. We found ourselves 

When you hold
a slice 

of freshly cut
red melon 

to my lips,
I drink 

Sometimes I enter the small chambers of the God of Forgetting 
and take my place at his feet 
and kneel 
and bow my head.