[late] National Poetry Month poem #3: a golden state

named for queen Calafia

from khalifa from caliph,

my love is muslim at her core

carrying jasmin & date palm with her

i was born hers, in a stolen land

of milk and honey. jannahic

are her oases, meccan her temper

her sands crossed by parents

caravan of vagrants transients homeless

exiles awelcome. what else is Blackness

beyond a pilgrimage from ash?

our bottleblonde hollywood mother

(permissive, permissible, halal)

lets yajuj & majuj pigs & dogs

run feral through Hidden Hills

lets the quakes rockabye us all

bathes in brimstone & smokescent

& we no longer know who to follow

let each tsunami wash as wudu

let a new variant of faith blaze & bloom

let the mahdi be born tan, soon

here in the home of all sunsets. here

we stand at the end of the earth,

all eyes on us. here is where i shall die

[late] National Poetry Month poem #2: BROWN FAT

God bless

brown fat bequeathed

from hunters

stolen fugitive(s)

farmers famine-tested

the only heirloom

I got. Life

sharpened by 

twelve hour workdays

into this body

of joy dancing

three hours straight

[late] National Poetry Month poem #1: RAMHEART

my mother caught every possible hint:

the alignment of family shoes

askew near the door was a lottery poem

only she could read: beware of intruders.

code lay under the rhythms of daytime ads,

god in newscasters' laden gazes as

they spoke of her hometown or ailments

my mother knew her centrality well

her brain a kandinsky of crosstown traffic

of clanging connections, every meal a divination

she tosses together garnished words

long after we've barred her from the kitchen

impious, i shut my eyes to pareidolia

see only moon rabbits when told how

find never messiahs but weevils in my cupboard

go unchosen & afterthought, hardheaded

all hints are enemies, the subtle too close

to dissembly. i return innuendo by twisting

a pithy meme into a conviction:

you cannot love me in a way that matters

venus in Aries, my ramheart

can only be pierced by a fire arrow

give me someone with a chest full

of declarations. i will hear nothing less

I am trying my best to not be a lizzo hater, but...

I doubt myself a lot; I probably always will.

I think a lot about the time a (female) interviewer told me straight out that she chose a (male) candidate over me because he had more confidence. Interviewers have told me I lack confidence multiple times.

I think a lot about the (Black female) recruiter who boasted of lowballing her client because her client didn't think to ask for more. "I just offered a candidate $85,000 for a job that had a budget of $130,000. I offered her that because that’s what she asked for and I personally don’t have the bandwidth to give lessons on salary negotiation." She said, and tagged it #beconfident.

Not all skinfolk are kinfolk, I know. But if it's feminist to use the “insecure” or “ignorant” as lessons in this way, then I want none of it.

I'm alive only because of the softness of others.

I also apologize a lot; it's ingrained in me by now.

I think a lot about the time a white woman coworker told me to apologize less and to say "thank you" more, "You should try that." I distinctly remember how certain she was as she told me—not suggesting, but commanding with an air of annoyance.

I think a lot about the time Lizzo, one of the music world’s loudest drumbeaters for self-esteem, angrily condemned music writers to unemployment because a (fellow Black female) music reviewer gave Lizzo a very critical review.

If that is what confidence looks like, I'd rather remain apologetic. I will apologize for apologizing, again and again.

i remain wary of unkinfolk, and devote my mind to the women, the black women, the black men, and the others who upheld my watery, airy self in interviews, as supervisors, as colleagues, and role models. i want to thank every one—gratitude inflates me & i no longer need to apologize once i am allowed to.

still, my brain returns to that ex-coworker and all the other shapes she may take. i wonder if she, in another body, told tell bell hooks to capitalize her name so that she doesn't look like she's downplaying herself.

i wonder if she told bell hooks to write her name in all caps: “other wise the world won’t take you seriously. otherwise, the world/i will can’t support you. Other wise I (the world) will eat you alive.”