I've tracked trouble bit its hardcore gait
mimicked its slick-talk swagger-back
cool-ass motherfucker strut Baby
When you're here I won't show you corners
where I kicked in teeth the streets
I wandered to forget my father I won't
tell you the scant tales of a fist
its 7 scars the dislocated pinky No
—not the story of this torso
these hands the one bad knee and how
this body's failed: reverse move to the hoop
tracking a line-drive down the left field fence
or the reasons I gave up standing on my own
two feet and like an eight-day dance
craze shook to the floor in grief for weeks
I'd tell you my mother is still alive somewhere
because it isn't true and some day someone
will infuse lies like this with myth and make
my fictions prayer For example:

Let me love you from far away—across
the silly distance of an ocean Let me shut up
and listen Let me fool myself into the city mists
of another country whose only whispers I know
come late at night over the phone recounting
your stray pains the secret sweats the imagined
touch: You see I'm better off unwritten
by your fingers' calligraphy
                                      Love—decipher me
Speak me with your first tongue

An Essay On Misri
        "A certain gal in this old town
        Keeps draggin' my poor heart around
        All I see, for me is – misery"
        —Harold Arlen

Misri says she is water
which means each morning
I hold some

small portion of her
in my hands Some days
I let her fall through

my fingers and other days
I take her little by little
into my mouth Most of the time

I just close my eyes
and hold her cool skin to my lips
I've heard men say

they would prefer to drown
in Misri It ain't
an easy task—to stroll out

into the salt blue versions of her
without looking back—but
I think men are not

like horses: Even if no one
forces our heads or hearts
We lead ourselves