Poetry

i am the eldest daughter of an eldest daughter of an eldest daughter

Native is the color of my American tongue. The color of ashen / moon dust, crisp with pink around the edges. When I kiss with it, / love with it, it tastes of toasted coconut.

LISTEN · to the brume breathing boon and reaches · / looms and lingers low in the valley · where the / world-roof willows · spins its silver · scatters silence ·

I couldn't find grandpa’s grave after a deep-water season. Water filled like a mirror, bemused / like a candid child. Grandpa said fishermen grew by water, died of water, and turned into water.

my mother tugs my hand. / she shouts, as if i am / fifteen years old leaving / our apartment at night.

A voice-like cadence running through the family, whose members are children of many gods, telling them they are accustomed to certain kinds of death. Starvation. Salvation: too many burning desires, enough to bring down a house with it.