Witness

Every year we have been witness to it: a man

pouring wine into two glasses and a woman

sliding out, eyes, lips, tongue like a stack of smoke,

body without shoulders, smudged up

in fingerprints and teeth. She is naked, maybe

with a cigarette, a cup of tea, the representation of starvation.

Maybe our looking unclothes her, convinces her

there is sweeter fruit than her own name.

 

It’s true, the Bible didn’t prepare me

for when a woman tells her own story.

 

America, you may be asking yourself, what

does this have to do with anything?

You drink gin on the back steps, talk like two men do,

forever trying to get out of this world

far more than what you put in.

 

What do I owe you? I don’t have it to give you.

 

America, spare me, would you, this blinding headache.

Don’t bring your emotions into this. This is a poem

so don’t come here searching for final blessing.

You know the trembling is happening silently, you know

the magnitude, know how the tune goes, if not the words,

how for generations bodies like mine were the choice

for someone like you to make, to say it is gospel.

As if that’s okay.

The trick is, will you just quit looking at yourself?

 

Every day I’m still looking for God

and I’m still finding him not at all interested in me.
Every night I pray for a lantern in my chest,

edicts from a cloudy white beard hooked over ears.

But I’m taking the day off.

When I’m quiet, that’s when the truth emerges.