For Sabrina
2011
Exile. Exhale.
the years ribbon off and away like film frames of a petri dish
like fish in a river, a wish in the river, like birds in the sky.
One frame is how i've been taught to be small.
i thought for years i wasn't good enough wasn't strong enough
what if i was wrong and enough is enough?
a lifetime unribbons, a river oxbowing, prayers hit the sea
the heavy bow of your lips, i bow from old hips
the exile of wanting and not having
the exhale i've been holding on to instead of you
I’m writing poems to the idea of an exile that may be ending
You are my Haiti and i'm Aristede flying home
From great heights the years stacked to crumble
tossing fears out the window
wild geese fly home in my heart
honking out, you do not have to be good.
Migration horizon, faroff and closening
one intensity winging home
Where is home? Who is here?
how have i lived and called this "home"?
how have i given this body to others and called it love?
you are love— that's your name and always was
nothing's changed while everything's changed
Passing migrating flocks, alone
i wake sobbing in my pillow, cried all day yesterday
was afraid to see you tonight
cos all i did our last year together, was cry
but when i saw you, all we did was laugh
and time opened her arms and space said this is the place
and all that lies before us as the Great Is
is love
where i can land, shaky wings folding in
stand and exhale
circle that arboreal land, circle down to homeland
be big as the circle closed
The one sky exhales one bird
a wish, a prayer, a permutation, a nuclear meltdown
the reaction happens beyond time's borders, is both a noun and a verb
is always happening,
Aristede on that silver jet coming in
the crowds cheering, accolades of love wash over him
wild goose finds her same shore from before
having held before in her now mind always till now arrives
she's an arrow, was always an arrow, magnetized
tipped with the scent of you
Seeking a way through thickets of thorns holding songbirds
open, soften, get bigger like that
how small i've been, shoved in contraction
the creativity rolling off my clench
my no, my i can't, my i'm not good enough
what if i'm wrong?
What if i could undress all the pretty ribbons, unwind the the padding
all the way down to the naked steel post
what if i am both, simple steel post
and a migrating goose heading home?
What if there were happy endings, lifting off to sail
what if i don't have to die to be happy
You were always more good than the world was bad.
Personas can fly like wild geese inside, calling to each other
"you can do it! you're doing great! look how big you are! you rock!”
all that stuff geese say to each other to get them through worlds
They do not have to be good.
It's a finite journey in a larger song
it’s been moving in us all along
the years are mollecules of air we pierce and sail on through
magnetized, holding the map inside, almost
almost There.
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