by Aja Monet
is stubborn for her tongue
when she came here
to this house of magic
and galaxies
i wonder
if she ever longs
for her country
if a santera
ever misses her god
she once told me
love is sacrifice
thank you.
wit
my first audience was a small room of ovaries
i read poems about a planet called the heart
we contemplated her existence
like a myth or saint, we worshipped
the umbilical cord. for nine months, i made
a body, a ship, a vessel i’d travel thru
hoping to someday reach unapproachable
land. there will always be a woman
who will travel you in veins
all your mannerisms
an ode
to her revolt.
for the mothers who did the best they could
she does not know we are sisters
even it be years we don’t speak
on my spirit, sacred as a smile that survives
a good cry, i hold her close
just before the sun rests
on a building, across the water
spills a shoulder on the street
and we lean on love for the first time
in a long while, since two open palms ago
praying or holding a framed memory
i am somebody’s daughter again,
i speak like i belong in her echo,
i watch chaos control a heart,
a wild repression from a distance
loving everybody
from a distance
ease me from spending too much time
with my likeness
from a distance
the cross-fire carnival of childhood
reappearing images
a pinch in every dream
silent as a paper cut
from a distance
a single mother alone
making do with what may
what madness comes of survival of the fittest
if spirits prove we reach beyond
can we love at a distance?
i am rueful and wicked to wait
so long before touching my mother
this soft like i lay our avenue down
for her feet and we walk toward the bus
a skyline humming in our hug
embracing the drops between us
i have kept each tear
never fully fallen
choosing this dimpled
woman as a portal
what i meant was
i am vulnerable
i am a daughter
if i do not hear
my mother’s laughter
it could go years
every room is a prison
every love is a lie
every friend is a foe
i cannot tell the difference
between her wailing and mine
my mother does not know
we are sisters
when the poor sing
in all our glory
there is a verse
on a street corner
in a bodega, on a train car
there is a stanza
in the gutter
where life is
difficult
and rhymes fall
from every
tongue
jungle gym
in east new york backyards hanging clothes on the laundry line jams spill out the vintage radio from the kitchen screen swollen mosquito bites and scraped knees dirty band aids hang off scrawny elbows we wash pit bulls with a water hose and shampoo soap suds flood the clefts in the cement sun ra chasing the back of our shoulders we tan in newport smoke sipping on sweating cups of pepsi and freezer ice tray cubes city kids claw toward the earth while adults build more buildings we ran toward trees climbed fences a marathon to connect to the world children with vivid visions empowered by inner rhythm to know the difference between war and love tolerance and respect loyalty was law manhattan was the government i used to think all police officers were born in a jailhouse somewhere in midtown and that the mayor fetched them on us come morning
we rose
sundered skin
cruising on handlebars
sporting fresh
knee scabs
sidewalk armed with chalk
illustrating innercity blood
laughter lived
through us
foul-mouthedknuckleheads
we were careful
we were socareful
careful not
to die too young
gap-toothed smiles garden
the graves ofour greats
metropolis moonlight mocks the hudson river apartments turn
their igneous light bulbs on dwellings blush sapphire of incandescent
stars flickering in buildings and bridges
many love the mouth murders secrets their words heard throughout a city
old gun metal pigeons starving and flying over asphalt rivers
who records the bird’s eye?
a testament
of tenement rooftops overlooking
overlookingthe millions.
564 park avenue
abuelita’s hands were a time card she clocked
in and out, morning and night. they were
a pile of dirty sheets at the foot of a bed,
gnarled broomsticks, dustpans, and sooty vacuums,
her hands were soiled rags in yellow gloves,
they were two pillows beaten of mites
and dead skin, her hands were paper towels
and windex on greasy mirrors.
they were many rooms each day.
her hands were a slice of wonder bread
dipped in dark coffee with sugar,
they were cinnamon sticks oozing in farina,
they were ketchup squeezed over a plate
of scrambled eggs and white rice
they were what fed and cleansed
her hands were my hands
rushing to school before work.
on asking my grandmother about santeria
there’s no such thing
as good or bad
there is only justice.
no justice
no peace.
an offering
vermilion wax seeps soft
down a braided back of wick
the mischievous flame swallows
small devils rendered helpless
shadows tremor the parquet
how we rid a room of virulence
tug a cork from deep copper wine
and pour toward the mestizo priest
hospitality defies sin, a spineless
bruised banana lay near
the lanterns gutter
wemarooned in the projects
hid in the holy hood of our crown
douse our bodies in albahaca water
blessed by sandhog saints
abre el camino
as hellish hipsters sip on Brooklyn brew
westopped and frisked spirits
haunt these streets
handcuffed with bicycles
while they litter their laughs
maraca our wrists at city hall
to thunder the gods from their
tenement altars
venture to gentrify our heaven
and wage a war with a witch
limbo
i saw a young boy die once
like an ant, he disappeared
beneath my finger
behind the window
on the 17th floor
i watched his circulating tissue
soak the pavement
from up there in the sky—we weren’t heaven.
we just didn’t have cable
pictures of jesus’s
open arms on the wall
pale yellow paint
plastic covered couches
tiny kitchens
senior citizen friendships
and a buzzer
oh yeah
a buzzer
elevators smelled of
arroz con pollo
cigarettes
soul food
piss
apple pie and steamed fish
we weren’t heaven
we were the things God
saved for last on the dinner plate
i thought maybe i would break out of his thigh
or forehead
like Athena,
like a headache sold off the bodega counter
with a sword
of Goya beans
to pierce bellies that knew
what it was like to make something
of nothing
i used to walk to the train station
school mornings
here, there is no such thing as sexual harassment
just old men that never grow up
little girls grow into women and know
the difference between a catcall
and love
is the kind of attention it gives you
when a boy falls in the ghetto
it makes a sound
only the soul can hear
and i hope the boy knew
this wasn’t heaven
i hope he knew God wanted so much for him
i hope he knew that i saw the breath leave his chest
the amber divorce his eyes
the nike air force ones lay stagnant
after shaking goodbye
you have left
your mark, young man
i fear ever dying and not
letting the world know
i was here
i used to think we were human
beings that had spiritual experiences
there was something about watching a boy die
i realized we are spiritual beings
with human experiences.
there are far too many survivors
and not enough living
far too many preachers
and not enough giving
where i’m from
the nature of a man is to fall and get back up
again.
this is unnatural
get back up again!
the laces of your shoes hold onto each other like orphans
over telephone wire.
just above the right upper corner of the moon
as i stand
where you once lay
i’m hoping this isn’t heaven,
i know it isn’t heaven
the words don’t come easily
and i can still hear your blood
on the concrete
dry and cooing and whisper
this isn’t heaven
in heaven there is no need for blood
ree ree ree
one day you will shine
nine shades brighter than the sun
–Gia Shakur
she told me
her grandmother
let her
cook crack
on the kitchen stove
as she squeezed a blunt
between midnight lips
exhaling a cloud
of hula hoops
swirling
in the air.
huge gold-framed hearts
dangling on her earlobes
her hairpiece held in place
by a blooming red-flowered scarf
Biggie played on the radio
we both nodded our heads
cult-like
to the beat
bobbin our bodies
jerkin our joints
you my bitch, aja
crept off the smoke
from her throat
i felt honored
the way we wound and heal
in the caves of our hoods
how black and brown girls
gather and peel
comparing stretch marks
and playground scars.
how close we come to each other
never touching
how the soul
taps and gossips
the secrets we hide
under our tongues
quiver and creak
like cockroaches
we chased together
tardiness
aunt maddy endures breathing
a beggar, roaches rattle floorboards
rats riddle the room doorless
dressers vomit drunk garments
the mattress drenched in dry bodily fluids
scraps of skin scent the setting,
a hideous healing of hourly highs
mascara meets the eye, dry drip
red tooth, stained and slapped gums
laughter liquors her steps and critters
crawl in the crevice of happiness
disaster wears bedroom slippers
she shouts for her newports
slippery shoulders sing of morning beer
she’s still somebody’s hero
BCW stole six children from her arms
she’ll never stop seeing windows as wings
daughters divine as devils despite
the fall from heaven, widowed before
her wedding, the cunt of commissary
crossroads, collect call confessionals
she swears heaven has a security
guard, don’t let nobody through
without favors and rubber glove
inspections, an abdomen stretched
by a lack of contraception, scars
scale across her stomach like spanish
moss, coiled and curved on southern
trees. loose leaves litter the kitchen
table, as i finish homework before
school. she was careless and quiet
while the clock ticked past first class
faint light in silence as she dozed off into
darkness. the heartless apartment
emptied of smoke she spilled, of snoring
hurt. her crucifix upside down
hickey’d between her collarbone
and shirt. i ate the air for breakfast
and watched pigeons prey on stale wonder
bread from the living room sill
waiting
waiting
waiting
my parents used to do the hustle
competing across public parks
i gravitated toward
turntables and cyphers
disco and latin freestyle
watchin over
enveloped in the cool
jazz of their joy
i chose them
long before
their hurt
long after
they chose me
birth, mark
when i think i am not my mother’s child,
my mouth betrays me, i carry her
fuck you flung at my face
a knuckle in my cheekbone, i spit out fingers.
she gave me a crescent scar, swung a wire hanger
across, i should have had the abortion
your low-life father wanted,
drags me by my rag-doll heart each time,
passes a palm down her stomach,
lifts her shirt above the waist,
yells look at me, look at the damage—
i came into this world a stain, a stone, a c-section
the soft terror fleshed out of her body.
i could have stayed in there forever,
stretched her skin into translucence, my window
seat to pastoral weeping, i left her
underbelly glistening
the welt of a wound worn,
withdrawn, shrinking into—
i watched her smear cocoa butter
above her hips,
hands pulsing of vines
along the groove of striae, tending the umber
lightning bolts in the rhythm of pouring,
of my being here.
i am the sort of animal that needs to be held,
ruins the hold, tears the body apart
limb by limb, satin strands of skin ripped open
suffer, shame, sacrifice hum in the head
as if heirloom or honor or hurt—
a vexed tongue can be a pistol, a loaded barrel of insults
can be ears bleeding. a testimony of regret
unborns you
ungrateful piece of
when they were two bodies laid together
heaving each other’s breath
did my parents pause to make me?
i want to hunt down the second
just before
and live in the i love you, of the quiver.
was it rapture or mere spasm?
did they pray, did they exhale
did they say amen?
shell shock
a 9mm gun, black as a watermelon seed spit
through the mouth of a door—wide open—a threat
aimed at my mother’s head. my brother is seven.
i am four. my uncle shouts, raise so much
as a finger on them again, i’ll kill you so
years go by and i am twenty-eight. my brother
is thirty-one and houseless. no words reach
my mother. my uncle is lock’d up again and
i am writing about triggers, afraid for them.
reflection
anger is a spirit that mounts
swallows your eyes whole
the color of craze
punished cheeks
a battered mouth
spider legs sprawling out
a venomous sorry
threats turn inward
tears on someone else’s face
a broken mirror
you own
legacy
stigmata faces usher in a new
born brawl of brothers and sisters
built for jails, we take
what we ought to have
except never knew
better not to want
our mothers could not be housewives
so they beat us into homes
out of frustration
district two
for tanya kaufman
she used her work address
to get us into school, she
