thought I would walk to the grocery
the one down the road in the little white building
might or might not be owned by a cousin
he claimed to be and had the same name
doesn’t mean much when you’re in the Deep south
didn’t know I’d be walking forever
all older now and slowing down
oyster shell pavement still rough of an evening
but where else to buy butter in this small town
and a can of Rotel spicy of course
weekend’s coming so cheese grits
with hot hot tomato gravy
first you make the roux…
as a child I asked the wisest person I knew
how do we know the sky is blue
not pink or green or grey or black
because sometimes it is those
is this merely an agreement some group made
amongst themselves and then all followed
why does it have color at all
being a collection of things not a thing itself
the wise man being extremely wise
gave no answers but sat with me
and together we gazed at the changing colors of the sky
I have been in those small family graveyards
traced on weathered gravestones names from long ago
had the dead rise around me to share their stories
the world is so much more than you want to see
so you coffin yourself by different means
not even knowing you thus become dead
until one day life makes itself known
and you remember and are afraid
I refuse to be afraid
I have died many times
I walk in liminal ways
because I love you-how can I not
I will once again break my heart
offer you the pieces on my best thrift store plate
knowing you will not notice my offer, or if you do
disdain it as worth nothing at all
the piled shards webbed with metallic threads
the repairs I made beautiful over the years
breaking it again and again to give you all I had
driven to the refuge of shadows
so not to become her mother’s sacrificial prey
another child offered to uncaring gods
by a parent bent on insane pursuit of their own goals
she watched as her mother danced about with gibbering glee
and even as she shouted in her madness
words that jangled with sharp strident barbs
and waved her anger hotter than any blazing branch
Electra loved her, even as she wept in fear
so many times she said I died,
then I’d take a breath and live.
again. until the next time.
years later I saw her.
for me it was as if for the first time,
yet she gazed at me and smiled,
“I would know you anywhere.”
when I left, she held my face in her hands,
her touch a gentle fierce love.
then I remembered.
and I know why I returned.
she put me in the car
drove headlong into the oncoming lane
that was the first time
she picked up a skillet full of hot oil
flung it at my head
that was the second time
she took me to a strange city
abandoned me on the street
that was the third time
I never knew still do not know
what she thought to do by any of these things
the first destroyed a sense of security
but heightened awareness
the second killed a hope for love
but taught trust in reflexes
the third wiped out desire for a relationship
but rewarded the tendency to be prepared
I cannot say I lost her-how do you lose one you never had-
though for many years I grieved over the empty space
where she might have been
this has become only sadness
over what she could have had
over the damage she must have suffered
over the inability to build a bridge she would accept
but also gratitude for the strengths I have
my heart once so hurt I did not think it would ever heal
now opens wide enough to invite the world
to rest within an infinite expanse
I never knew my father as anything other,
though from stories I heard he lived a life
rich with travel, music, art, and other dangerous things.
for years I carried with me my sole testimony to this,
a charcoal self-portrait he had drawn of himself as a young man,
the paper creased and worn from years of being folded
before it passed into my hands, and I chose to keep it close
in the left back pocket of my jeans just like he had done.
one day it simply fell apart, and I went to a bridge
and scattered the tattered remnants over the water.
I doubt he ever traveled in this area but think he would have approved.
when I was young, I knew so many dangerous things
boys risk their lives for chance
in brief suicidal encounters with other boys
girls buzz their hair in swagger
for langorous forbidden dances with other girls
bodies hide different meanings
with changes and revisions often unseen
words and stones hurled from car windows
are equally capable of inflicting bloody wounds
queer fag dyke tranny used on us like knives
to carve their imagined shame into our very being
but
the most dangerous thing I knew is what I still know
we are here, have always been, will never not be
our risk brave, and we pay love’s cost
our swagger pride, and we openly embrace
we have taught each other magic
made our scars into marks of beauty
transformed their scornful terms into rallying cries
when we look at you with clear unafraid eyes
we see who you really are, so that you turn away
because you know, have always known:
we are the dangerous things
I practiced from the very beginning
machines made me breathe
strangers touched me with love
for my first three months these sustained me
gave me reason to return again and again
I did not know I was not machine
unrelated to the always present gentle hands
I have never forgotten those earliest teachers
and now dying gets easier every time