after Adrian Piper
You can’t stop mourning
everything all the time.
The ’90s, the black Maxima with a tail,
CD wrappers, proximity to the earth.
Glamour and sweating in your sheets.
Speaking tongues. Men, even.
You are a woman now
but you have always had skin.
Here are some ways in which
you are not free: the interiors
are all wrong, you are a drought
sprawling. When you see god
you don’t like what you see.
It is never enough to be born
again and again.
You like it at church when
strangers hold your hand.
You have a mouth men bless.
You look good enough to bury.