I’ve purchased prayer shawls for women of states that never
quite were
Who are more real than I could ever feel
I have put my hand in the passion, centuries worn, and felt
the beauty in the lie
Smoothed over with the seal of ritual; incense and
flagellation
Enough for the breeze to speak through
Enough for the griot to bleed to
Wearing the beat of whip upon flesh
Watching the children marched to war
In the belly I, judge penitent, gluttonous feeding upon
organs, confess; echoing hollow
Without the map of commandants who would profess prophetic
sentence
My cell walls are well lined with other words
Nasty Short Beautiful Forever
Tracing the arbitration of the absurd
(kissed with insect
offal)
Symmetry speaks where logic is silent
