[th(e)reat] → siege engine

                                in my own body ← here i am a siege
                                overthrowing a home where no one lives
                                but me. i’m too big for my too big head
                                too barely anything for want, my love
                                built me from a nail in the wall galloped
                                to meet the socks on the floor → now a hole
                                in the wall i would peek thru & run some
                                cable thru so we all could watch cable.
                   now, there’s a good amount of good reasons
                   why no one lives here, no one lives with me.
                   my cat even tries to leave. he jumps out
                   the window, off the roof, & waits for me
                   to catch him with the neighbors. & i too
                   trynna be beautiful & loved this way.

i  ←  suppose: perching for life to begin
is this flatline moving me, failed, forward,
feathered closer to grace each time; going
mother after mother i wake up as
a dove picking lilies from her black i
suppose i love so i know i ain’t know
                brevity without withholding a breath  ←
                loved those flying ants,  infiltrating  thru  all  fronts’
                doors til i (w)as a room entered watching
                for  bites tender thicker  than all-time’s
                to consume ← consistency dragged → this long
                makes me  wanna bite bird feet  ← too   baby
                cat  i love you too,...   ache in my bones you
                remind me of  what is it(?) to be  picked ←

Subscribe to the Poem-a-Day Podcast 

  

“On the afternoon after Jericho Brown won the Pulitzer, I wrote the first sonnet of this poem. In it, I’m asking ‘What is a contemporary siege engine? What are some of the castles perpetuating the moats of distance & disparity between us? If I am to circumvent a castle door, what am I bringing into that space? What am I leaving with? How will I imagine a new wor(l)d as I am so full of the sacrifices it took to get to only another question?’ I use parentheses in my poems to add 1-3 letters to a word making it another word, thus a slightly different world, so I encourage you to literally read then say one word following the other; you also have the option to choose one in my quick, abrupt, urgent parenthetical word.”
—Trace Howard DePass

Black Lives Matter Anthology

“Black Child, laugh at the men with their hoofs
and borrowed muscle”

—“For Black Children at the End of the World—and the Beginning” by Roger Reeves