Afterglow

Look at us, in our marble boats
to the next beyond. Pity us with our
treacherous cargo, with faces that you
have never seen never will again. Twist

our hands into claws, we are hissing trees
in the colder months, we are doors crashing
closed on their own. We are tricks of the light
we are milk spilt so it looks like a woman’s

body, chalk outline, homicide. We resent your
perennials, your kitchen garden filled with bones. Our
household bruises are yellow blue yellow blue yellow
they open on skin like marigolds like mango sherbet.

We resent the way you pray to us
offering up leftovers and hardened rice
pieces of rotten fruit, opening your folded
palms to show blank air and soothsayer’s lines

saying you will have six children, who will have children
of their own. You will cross the sea, your heart full of blood
will empty into itself until it does not anymore. We are the space
between a hand clasped in prayer and a fist shut in rage.