I decided that I was a planet.
I decided that I was a planet and I was a planet.
I had to.
I decided that I was a planet and—
I am.
.
I want to love.
I see old women
Who live.
They know something.
.
It’s true I’ve suffered
The delusion
That I am unlamblike.
But oh my gosh that’s crazy.
.
Though it doesn’t matter where I sit
And that I’m fucking crazy.
God gave it to me.
I have to live.
.
It doesn’t matter where I sit
And that
I’m fucking crunchy.
I have to be fibrous
So as not to be consumed.
I have to
Fucking live.
.
I can live—
In the world—
With the people.
I can live in the world with the people if they understand that
All a poet is is some bitch
Who thinks she’s better
And feels sort of bad about it
But not, not really that bad more like
Feels bad
For feeling bad
At all.
.
Also, I need a lot of money.
So I could have a lot of money.
That’s why I need it.
I need a lot of money.
So I can have it.
Because I need to have money.
.
In August I visited my Gran.
I.
I walk past the psychiatric hospital.
It’s Sunday.
The beach was nice.
The sky is black.
I’m home.
.
At the nightclub they’d found five guns
And a lot of scissors.
When I read that to my mom she hears “seizures.”
Write a poem, she says.
Something
They can read at the funeral.
.
Today as I write this it is Thursday.
The funeral
Was last Saturday.
I did not send a poem.
Ma,
I am a poem.
.
So yeah: the beach was nice; the sky is black.
There are headscarves on my aunties.
I’m home I kiss my gran.
A man
With hands like earth leads the service.
I look at his hands.
He ejects certain words as a way of singing.
Some get pushed
Out or are pulled.
They leap
Or are
Grabbed—I dunno.
.
On the television
A woman carves
From a stack of rice krispie squares
Human breasts.
I feed cut watermelon to my grandmother.
I am low and found; I am high and found.
When I read that part to my mom over the phone she
Cries. It’s sad
She says.
I put my ticket there on her Visa.
The next day my cousin sends me a message.
I read the message.
Then what I do is call my mother.
Now you don’t have any more grandparents!
She’s crying—and good now
I am
Too.
.
II.
The curtains in my grandmother’s room are embroidered.
And peach.
And round and wild with wind.
.
A soft grey sky: Bye.
The crying I do at my cousin’s shoulder
Is not even mildly shy.
We’re yoked.
I think that’s pretty.
I hold her
For a long time and she
Pats me. There are only
Two poems:
.
You write a letter.
Or you describe something.
I kiss
A soft face for the quote unquote
Last time.
She said to save some for myself.
And not to laugh with all my teeth.
