after Kechi Nomu’s body parts
the tears continue  to pour like wet season.

when the woman came,    her womb in her

hand, the wound poured more,    squeezed

tight by the mob.    your father was reborn

seven times before     staying,  his back full

of knives      saying  please stay, please stay

his mother telling us  how  the  slavers  did

the same thing to the  father  of  her  father

scourging them    as  they  bruised the map

out of their arched backs      with a pearl of

bones in the middle,       ’til the body forgot

where it came from.       which makes me a

spiritchild  tonight,     begotten  of  Mimesis

which is the oldest  stimulus.     the serpent

knew this but  never   warned  her that she

would feel dizzy with God;      their  garden

spinning. it stretches that     language  with

a wide  contagious yawn:     as her   hunger

opened along.    the last thing i have     ever

wanted is rescue      or catharsis or a happy

ending. why waste     such     sorrow in one

act? the slaves distrust seas        that sprout

towers of light           from the shark’s belly:

the phantom limb       of a hand reaching to

to a drowning voice.       which makes me a

seachild drowned in tears     and my role is

to hoax a friend’s death       to a mother I’ve

never known in a cue of memory;     but by

my dream her eyes were cut       out of cold

stone.     to survive here is to stage our own

own death,  to die every day,      embalming

yourself;    through a world that has caught

flu that wiped half of the   bees  and snakes

but all i could think           for succor was an

artichoke rolled in       a cucumber-skinned

hotdog rough like a snake     half-formed in

God’s palm, yet un-cursed,    yet unbruised.

the garden was        still tunnel-shaped, His

slender fingers of sunlight  for trellis.   but,

God,    i’d rather my body a garden and not

a temple.     a temple means felled       trees.

there’s  a snake   in this poem but all i have

is a language forked      into a hiss.    there’s

a woman not moved by the lie.    dressed in

a wolf costume,    i growl into a lamb sad at

its owner’s passing.    the desert leafed into

a rainforest   filled with wolves.   somehow

my grandmother     plays Electra;     prefers

the son of man to cleave   and not the man.

Electra spreads her loss on a mat,    silently

as she cuts his back,   scratching a new city