The Diaspora of Your Voice
There is something at the bottom of your chest
at the back of your throat in that layer
that reflects a dull silver song. It’s not
in the dictionary, this dialect you’re
constructing, picking pieces of glass and
string along the gutters of history,
in the grout that viciously divides the you
in the documentaries, from the you
in the graves, from the you that grows
from the center of your back.
The diaspora of your voice is hatched from
the space you refuse to continue drowning in,
a heated locomotion to propel across seas
and settle into the beds and lyrics
of lands with short trees and no time.
People didn’t come to see your art
then, but they find the color of your echo,
the shining off your cheeks, something full.
They want your score. You tell them
they are already winning.
The Revolution of a Hand at Your Back
The revolution of a hand at your back
is a mirror, a slowly repairing sky
dry burlap against your brain, the numina
you can see sidling up the false space
Energy becomes a reverse drain
though nothing alights from
your thin collarbones, ears
still hoarding reedy hushes.
The resurrection of filling the hole in
your eyes with a hope to suckle on,
tells the birds you’ll see them down
the island, wears red and black to
echo off your white spirit.
This is all so foreign and no one
will hear your prayers;
but there is a coup to commit to.
Fingers imprint their mountains onto secret
skins and push you into folks that pulsate
into paper when you breathe on them.
Right and wrong are the names of alcohol,
but you can’t forget what was whispered
to you against your heart sounds:
Little steps, little steps
until the cliff gives rise to scented air.
