‍ ‍the bloodline will not end but 

begin with us again— overtly; 

the same way sunset crawls out 

of the graveyard. our chants have 

become injuries on skullcaps 

of ancestors. alone. that misty 

morning, the harsh rub of 

pink dew against the rear of my 

ears, as if silence can interpret the

fickle-rut of air. as if adversity 

cannot punch through the lithe 

illusions; our dream-walls made 

of honey & locked-jaw visions; 

into cinders of the red tongue

dawn. a cathedral of doom. 

the pied crow slips on the 

crucifix. as if the blood of the 

stone will not swallow us faster 

than it virtues. as they say ritual 

will make us heavy & unassailable. 

Requiem for White

i woke to a summit

of chattering flies 

loitering her hallway. 

a swollen body, 

listening 

to earth in squalor. 

forgotten the

many years of

art— of tidiness.

when death 

does not like your 

dank flesh

it holds you 

by hair, wrings out, 
drenches you 

in spikenard, spreads 

you in the sun 
above a dry woven 

palm branch. & 

hope by dusk you 

disappear as 

ordinary as footsteps.

things that walk 

with you at day 

walk by 

themselves— the paws

sauntering 

around you. as if 

you know everything

by scent.

how they lift

themselves quietly 

from the heated

marsh over the 

fence. the stale breath

of bath sewage 

& a rotten dog 

clawing your 

throat. 

a three & 

thousand psalms, 

a three  
& hundred 

ladles of salt, 

for this body. 

that is what 

prayer does; 

thickens the 

flesh. 

grows skin on 

the soul, to 

remind body 
death is nothing 

as living.