Published in PEN Center USA's Only Light Can Do That My grandmother told me when we die the body breaks open like a river. So, I fill my chest with deep breathes, trying to remember how to outstretch a hand to a man I can’t yet understand. I soak my eyes in ocean waves, swimming out beyond hate. Yet, even from there I can still see scowls in my windows. I can see a protestor crack open her reflection. I see a Klansman rally cold eyes in white sheets through neighborhood streets, and I see you – standing there ballot stub in hand. And while you don’t wear a white hood you still waved a white flag to walls around bodies, to fires around families, to hands invading my hips. And as our red, whit
Published in Black Fox Literary Magazine There used to be two two mugs, two pillows, two people in this home. I’d watch your sun-lit silhouette through the window – watch your two feet trudge through the whitewash, surfboard in hand, the horizon behind balancing your steps with its visible, encroaching gaze. I’d sit there, sip there, mug in hand, heart reaching through the glass. I’d set down the half-finished sketch, swing open the creaking, paint-chipped door as you breached the part of the sand where a picket fence would’ve been if we were the kind of people to have a picket fence. I’d kiss your salty lips, caress your fresh scrapes, and take the board back out for my own surf along the h
