Lullabye
my heart was rural, animal
burning yellowed fields and rust into my bones, my brain a china blue mobile of flying horses, raccoons crows, cats and dogs awake in the woods as night slips in and out of a life I'm not sure is mine, ghostcorners taunt me rangy creature that I am salty dog, already adrift in a new world (“bitch" someone says) where we torch the liars, erected on kindling of children's choirs, then eat the ash, start to tail and I'm trying not to fall asleep in the car with Samrawit the Amharinia caressing me conjo Miami, Bizu, Aida— their name for me, Cazrin, a song safe through Mami Feleke begins to b'sma'am and I know this small thing, as I too am a small thing, so I trust this nothing talk, a hand that strokes my hair, z'lalim as I drift to dark, z'lalim z'lalim, z'lalim, bubbles released to the sky salt over my shoulder, brilliant sting of lights, sound so orange I could die— in memory my future finding me, a broken arrow vagrant, twisting, wild as sparrows that haunt the body I have always wished would simply arc like petal and stem spark bright or quiet, the thicksoft gleam of the pale ones. conjo = beautiful b'sma'am = to pray, asking for help z'lalim = forever
|
