this is my magnum opus (!!!): that i have loved you and you never came. that i still 
love you cold, with no potential for warmth.  
 
                                                          somewhere there is a head of dampened soil, 
no waxing petals, no length of stamen or stem. no thing to grow. is that what you 
passed along, big mother? the knowledge of self—excuse me death. how to die and 
when and why. not everyone can drop off like that. fall off the cliff with such ease. 
see, the way we do it, the spirit ain’t going or gone. the way y’all taught me, i’ll 
soon drop off this dangling sediment (what a life!) and certainly that is peace, that i 
have loved you and you never came. how many times did you die in a workweek? 
that i still love you cold, with no potential for warmth. big mother, how much of 
yourself did you give away to silence? did that not also feel dead? did you really f
eel living? at least once? i have been moving but motion is not living. this is my 
magnum opus (!!!), that around the next river bend all of you are waiting like a 
leash of foxes to welcome me to the sweltering den. that is a lie. this is my 
magnum opus (!!!): that i am reheated. overheated. molten. and it feels so good. yet 
another lie, a performance, if you will. my magnum opus: i ought to leave you all 
alone. out of respect. i ought to stop saying your names like this, calling on you 
with such dying heat. do you want me to stop, big mother? rest, big daddy? stop. 
please. lay down beside me here, wherever here is. just this once. and i won’t tell 
no one. i won’t say a word about how good it felt resting up against your flush fur. 
please lay down beside me on this bed of grass, on my head of grass (some things 
can grow, i suppose, if you give them enough time). my grass pulled to the side, 
parted for your leisure, for your unworldly weight. i can bear it. i can bear it. i can 
bear it. i can bear it. i can bear it. i can bear your unworldly weight. stop and please 
come, all of you. please do not pass me by. please sleep while i am sleeping. please 
make sure to watch over me, to conserve my dying efforts, to help me contend with 
living. this is my magnum opus: that 

 i am always a far ways away from my people. i am always too far. ain’t it? i 
climbed up to the mountain top and verily dear lord i created fire. they weren’t 
there. verily dear lord the fire grew as a signal to come, to arrive, to stop passing 
me by just this once. they still aren’t here. i am always exerting always exerting 
always attempting life. what’s left? what now that i am gutted through and 
through? this inflamed magnum opus. that i have loved you cold, with no real 
potential for warmth.  

                                             mama wonders how long big mother would have lived 
if mama had stayed in south carolina. but she couldn’t. she couldn’t live staying 
like that. for that type of living was verily a death, and big mother knew it, so she 
went ahead and willed her passing. what’s been passed down to you? i know tired. 
i know tired too well. there is a way in which mama always stayed beside big 
mother, whispering in her ear, rubbing her head like she did mine as a child when i 
could not go to sleep. eventually mama had to go to sleep. eventually i would play 
my bed frame like a drum to fall asleep. i would create a rhythm with my left hand 
for calling my ancestors to help me fall asleep. my rhythm was not a beautiful 
song, for it was the soundings of this child. eventually sleep came, but i cannot say 
it was good, i cannot say i am well rested. there is a way in which mama does not 
tell me everything. where mama also goes silent. and i want to know what goes on 
there, in that silence. i want to know silence without harm. there is a way in which 
mama beams at big mother and tells her she’ll take her out of that place, she’ll take 
her anywhere she wants to go. days before she passes. before she goes. there’s a 
way in which i’m still telling mama that: pick a place, any place at all, just spin the 
globe goddamnit. how far can i take you and where and when? there’s a way in 
which big mother came back from her travels, looking like herself through me to 
tell mama she’ll take her any place she wants to go. right now. just say a place. 
right now. just pick a place right now. and i’ll take you there right now. anywhere 
but here right now. i promise.