Bitch, please calls out an orison for mercy.
Black mama’s castor oil, no revival.
Rap says niggas ain’t hungry anymore.
On an X-ray, the stomach’s curve is more like
a waxing moon than organ, just a phase
unchanging in the belly’s sort-of womb.
When I was young at church camp, we would get out
the Ouija board and try to levitate,
smashing a flashlight in one cheek to make
a ghost story turn horror. I would make-
believe spirituality.
Things like
possession—
going through a “knowing” phase
like all believers do—blessing to womb
to tomb. Growing.
Tonight, I’m playing out
“Go Down, Moses” as if it’ll levitate
right off the turntable. Or levitate
higher, a disc remixing the sky.
To make
the sky move would be sick,or really, like,
anything. Maybe time could be a phase.
I press a flashlight hard against my womb,
spreading my legs to see if white comes out.
If only anything came slightly out
of the ordinary, my skin would levitate,
each layer would hover.I aspire to make
a glory of a woman rising like
a field below a bluff, but not a phase
of failed perception. An evening.
There’s womb
in my throat now.
One time I heard the womb
of a woman’s voice when I was high and out
with a Nas and Marley track to levitate
over a k hole. Whole hook seemed to make
sense when it called for Somebody. I’m like,
Yeah. Somebody.
Nobody. Will I phase
out sense when every mouth proves just a phase
then only jaw?
It was Sabali, from the womb
of a foreign tongue—Bambara. Patience. I’m out
of listening. Tonight will levitate
above my upper lip so I can’t make
my face out separate from the dark. Make like
you saw me making love and crawling out
of the dirt. You saw my sex straight levitate
off my body like this is a phase—grounded—
and I’m turning
to fly with Lilith, succuba,
(two winged Night Hag with all her prophecies
inside their pussies) right to Nineveh,
the female place-nation-debaucheries.
We get it.
There, dear Jezebel can swear
by some new Baal. And sick and tired Eve
says, Damn,
I could have been the rightful heir
to fuck forgiveness, snake a fresh ink-sleeve
or tourniquet.
It won’t ever get old,
Lilith says, being the moody sex. They don’t
want us hysterical or loud or bold
but like the way they reek of us and won’t
wash off our sour. It will only take
a spark to help us taint the night awake.
When Lauryn Hill found
her manifest destiny
in Gore-Tex and sweats,
I told God that’s all
the heat we need. August haze.
A huge graffiti
Jesus prays on brick.
There’s Domino, nigga. There’s
Rose for the lady.
I breathe Hallelujah’s feminine endings.
Tonight’s not offering its arm
but a place for me inside its hoodie.
I will not wear Americoon,
the blacks, the go-to Halloween
costume for Ivy Leaguers, beleaguered
Bluegum.5-0,
we see you. White
House, we see you.
That place will turn
to just a storefront, GOLD n GUNS.
A perfect certainty—a storm won’t clean
my sweating skin and all the rain can’t muffle
the What motherfucker What That’s what
I thought Goddamn.
I can do all things
through Christ which strengtheneth me.
John saw
the dead
standing
before
God’s throne.
I see the exodus of light.
Let there
be black never absorbing white. Let there
be skin born back on every scar and tear.
Let there be no oceans or weapon-wear
of tides raking the shores.Sister, stand there.
I see the exodus of light.
Let there
be not afraid, for you are with the fair
and mighty god of your body.Stare.
Be skin born back on every scar, and tear
that undershirt, brother. Let us all bare
our weight. Let there be loose. And then, let there.
I see the exodus of light let there
be evening with no mourning.
Say the prayer
of your own name at dawn and echo Where?
Be skin born back on every scar and tear,
a voice no longer trembling, Why?the air
drying the eyes closing on Who?Aware.
I see the exodus of light.
Let there
be skin born back on every scar and tear.
Hold it, the angel Gabriel said.