Category Archives: #NPM17

Where had I heard this wind before Change like this to a deeper roar? What would it take my standing there for, Holding open a restive door, Looking down hill to a frothy shore? Summer was past and the day was past. Sombre clouds in the west were massed. Out on the porch’s sagging floor,Continue reading “April 30 – #NPM17”

Before I let you love me, my heart will have to finish the untitled document it’s spent months waiting to complete. It’s a requirement that you spill your guts for me so I know if you have any guts at all. Tell me about the way pianos sounded like pain underneath your mother’s fingers butContinue reading “April 29 – #NPM17”

they set my aunts house on fire i cried the way women on tv do folding at the middle like a five pound note. i called the boy who use to love me tried to ‘okay’ my voice i said hello he said warsan, what’s wrong, what’s happened? i’ve been praying, and these are whatContinue reading “April 28 – #NPM17”

In god’s gleaming empire, herds of triceratops lunge up on their hind legs to somersault around the plains. The angels lie in the sun using straight pins to eat hollyhocks. Mostly they just rub their bellies and hum quietly to themselves, but the few sentences they do utter come out as perfect poems. Here onContinue reading “April 27 – #NPM17”

It never ends, the bruise of being—messy, untimely, the breath of newborns uneven, half pant, as they find their rhythm, inexact as vengeance. Son, while you sleep we watch you like a kettle learning to whistle. Awake, older, you fumble now in the most graceful way—grateful to have seen you, on your own steam, simplyContinue reading “April 26 – #NPM17”

Your hand sails its gold ship around the small of my back and the streetlights blush, oranges peeling into their more naked selves. With you, it’s always this tender and waiting, the entire city opening just to close us in together. I mean it’s New York, New York isn’t it? and This has always beenContinue reading “April 25 – #NPM17”

I couldn’t tell you in any of the ways I knew how, it was strange because I spoke too often and so loud you often told me to shut up, but when I opened my mouth, I was always distracted. Your cheeks looked like freshly picked apples in the light, I wanted to sink myContinue reading “April 24 – #NPM17”

I am not the first person you loved. You are not the first person I looked at with a mouthful of forevers. We have both known loss like the sharp edges of a knife. We have both lived with lips more scar tissue than skin. Our love came unannounced in the middle of the night.Continue reading “April 23 – #NPM17”

There are many reasons — the promise of water, to offer one example — but none burns so blood as the good work of muscles pumping freight over the earth; as the fact of engine in my knees and all my lover’s inexplicable flesh churning wind beside me. The work of love becomes its ownContinue reading “April 22 – #NPM17”