After Abdulkareem Abdulkareem

 

I’m not sure of a transitioning sometimes
this metabolism of anti-grieving beats me,
& i, as ants, break into reverberations like
holes. it’s no longer modern, that bodies
sprawl hands like garlanded flowers towards
uprooted stems, but i own a guardian angel
ferrying this grief i’ve mouthed into a paper
boat, suturing the opening in this wound into
a credence, softening its teeth on my skin like
wine into a fur of turpentined tanned bodies
in cadence, i’ve crunched too many lips than
teeth — which is to say: not every scar lipped
into a body houses a labyrinth of skin & bone
mama, i understand how a body loses
its gravity to grief, to fall into a kaftan with graphene
circuits. i’ve scurried into a corner more than
once, to bring myself to a crucifix, to see if
a nail can drill into the palms of another Jesus
but living is ignoring the ugly voices that form
into a plethora of echoes to show how color-
less it is to walk the earth with beads of breaths
this poem is not a rope dragging a boy to the
mouths of a barracuda | this poem is a sanctuary
teaching broken bodies how to say no to grief.

 

 

 

 

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