My mother washed the day's black grime (landays)

Every night, from the edge of the tub,

My mother washed the day's black grime from her hard cracked heels

Every morning, she boiled new water

Kettles lined up to ferry the heat for Daddy's bath

The days pile deep inside the front door

Futures seep in through the eyes of the grubby mesh screens

I wash in flows of magic water

What does it matter to me whose belly I laugh with?

I cannot choose the feet I dance on.

Neither did she. I watched her from wakeup to breakdown

Borrowed soul (landays)

Mending my cloaks, hiding my bruises

I sat by the shores of my borrowed soul and noticed

Picking up what floated through my hands

All the lonelinesses in brightly colored bottles

So pretty in the graveyard sunshine

So see-through in my fingers, cradling the old truths

I sat with my soul in my two hands

Yodeling to heaven, knowing nothing, growing light

So quiet, the broken-wide soul shards

And in the earth I felt the drums of my foresisters

I was never told (landays)

I was never told there was a key

I spent those years hurling myself at the locks instead

Somewhere in the basement is a list

Of all the bruises, turning their fairytale colors

What is the thin space between the files?

Why does the handwriting sing in your mother's voices?

What can I tell you first, young Marie?

I watch you through the backwards glass and you won't listen

Whatever I write now you erase

I waltz as slow as I can. You shoot at my ankles

Name the children, quick, before they fade

Fold them into peace cranes, jump them through the love canals

Scoop the tomorrows fast as they come

Count the dreams, swim the lost caves, know they will never stop

Throw the minutes high into the air

So that there will be time for the race before they fall

I will count the names we've forgotten

You and I, so earnestly holding onto the hands

I will swallow the key at midnight

So that the fairytale colors finally make sense

Lifetimes (landays)

Chasing fresh chickens for tomorrow

I trip on yard roots the day cook would thrill to gather

My grandmothers squirrel me away

In unfindable closets, powder me to sweetness

The glass jags. I burst. Forget, forget!

The light burns before I come clean, the swim washes past

I catch the children falling through me

From trees I can't see to paths I can't reach with these toes

I speak alone. In sleep, in old rooms

I echo the bodies that build the chains that don't crack

I breathe the code. You dial the gods

Don't make it hard. These fields of mercy are ripening

Strange things happen

Dance me on all the floors in this dream
Ignore the parade of sleepless men in my kitchen

The renter the fixer the gamer
The hungry, the scared, hungover men in my kitchen

I march arm in arm with my women
We frighten the lost and wayward men in my kitchen

The dreamer the jammer the dancer
The life-thirsty, restlessly caged men in my kitchen

Give me a broom to sweep my room clean
Betray them. Stab them. I don't need the men in my kitchen

Roof where you dance

House has collapsed. Roof is where you dance

Door where you knock is floating too high. Stockpiling walls.

Empty fridge full of babies. No milk.

Wings of geese beat sense. Strong women hide in the open.

House is trampled. Art was a dang song

Art was a drowned rug tracing road, zoo, school. Tiny cars.

Art was a dance. Music in rubble

Homeless gold poets. Over and over the wrong truth.

House is stones smashed. Boneless dance on fire

Drink down the other answers. I am close. Home has rooms.

Loose in my skin (landays)

Lying in skin, looking like nothing

I tear the blue-eyed sky to empty, storm the bright clouds

Loose in my skin, looking like people

I sour my rhymes to sirens, bark them like soldiers

Come the hour, all the ink will burst

We crawl through our minds, grateful for ricocheted whispers