1. at creation

and i and my body rise
with the dusky beasts
with eve and her brother
to gasp in
the insubstantial air
and evenly begin the long
slide out of paradise.
all life is life.
all clay is kin and kin.


1. at gettysburg

if, as they say, this is somehow about myself,
this clash of kin across good farmland, then
why are the ghosts of the brothers and cousins
rising and wailing toward me in their bloody voices,
who are you, nigger woman, who are you?


1. at nagasaki

in their own order
the things of my world
glisten into ash, i
have done nothing
to deserve this,
only been to the silver birds
what they have made me
nothing. 


1. at jonestown

on a day when i would have believed
anything, i believed that this white man,
stern as my father, neutral in coupling
as adam, was possibly who he insisted he was.
now he has brought me to the middle of the
jungle of my life. if i have been wrong, again,
father may even this cup in my hand turn against me.