My Hand Holding My Hair Holding My Head Held High
xTx

You are a colored thing. The light of a rose. Turned inside out, spraying down, an arc, upon faces upward turned, eyes open.


There are so many of you I can’t care enough.


I lay out so many baskets. I spray them across the yard. I cover as much space as possible in case you come down like rain. I do not want to miss any parts of you. I lift up the corner of my skin, peek, and whisper-ask-tell, “You think you can put him back together. Re-create a man and then own him. You think he will belong to you after. Even if he has not enough nose. Even if his arms stop halfway down. Even though his mind might be segmented.” Then you whisper, “Fool.” And it sounds mean, like a second grade teacher from 1971.


If I had a giraffe, I wouldn’t. I’d have an elephant. I would ride that motherfucking elephant EVERYWHERE! So badass.


People would say-think, “There’s that badass lady riding her badass elephant like a fucking BADASS!!” And there would be so many exclamation marks after their voice left people would call the news stations. They would try to explain about how all the exclamation marks were floating in the air like slow bullets. No, like from out of a machine gun or a Gatling gun, they’d say. So frustrated when the news people would continue asking the dumbest questions about “perpetrators” or “casualties” or “location.” The people had never seen floating punctuation. Bars with their dots floating up into the air like bubbles.

Me on my elephant. Named Terrence. Probably. Or Dean.

Return to Archive