– for inessa
take that ghost of a slave girl body
living inside your ribcage
fling her far as you can
from that whipping post
i don’t mean the actual post
in some hot-as-death clearing
under some peeping-pallid moon
where the moss hangs
in banners of baby nooses
i mean: don’t walk yourself
to the middle of a choking white
where you can’t see
how fine your face is
how robust your voice
when it pierces through a circle
of silent buzzards waiting
to take your flesh like gold
there is no other way to tell it
you will hurt in river deep places
you will dream doors inviting you out
onto plantations of skin
you will wake at least once
to the messy shadow of a black man
dangling outside your window
and close your curtains tighter
against the familiarness of it all
but here’s what: you’ve got a beehive for a brain
let all those humming thoughts of yours
make honey out of your nightmares
don’t do no death dances with your ghosts
don’t get all stuck up in the salt wounds
of some old as church fester
take that stinging sticky mess
of slave girl bones
make yourself a rattle
then shake shake shake
shake yourself loose and be off
