MORGAN PARKER


Everything Will Be Taken Away

Image

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. JLo even. 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.

from Paperbag