Me (Moth): "Moth Egg"–"Egg"

Aunt Jack prayed & prayed & bit her nail beds ruddy—
but there is only so much prayer & if god takes sacrifices,
only so much blood to offer.

the funeral was rudely everything but mournful—
the birds tittled & tattled & the leaves insisted
on sunsetting over the urns & everything I wore
was borrowed, even my time felt borrowed.

I have noticed some things traverse state lines,
oceans & railways.

I have noticed sometimes a stereotype becomes the truth
to even the stereotyped,
so when I started ballet at five, I heard things like
Black girls can't be ballerinas,
their legs are too thick & their arms
are too strong, not delicate like willow branches.

Leaving offerings on the mantel for the ancestors is just fine.

Choreograph a symphony of movement in the mind.

He just taps his pencil faster.
Reminds me of tap shoes scuffing
wooden planks, or rain hitting
a tin roof.

Before my grandfather died he taught me
that a lot of what we think we know
about moths is as flimsy as their delicate wings,
which sprinkle
dust & death like whispered omens.

Grandfather used to say, There are no omens, just balance.

No cars beaming & hurtling down freeways.

Transverse orientation means to follow the angle of the moon.

A flashlight shambled a million years of celestial navigation,
the artificial hue somehow outshining
the actual moon.

Who will answer for the sin of it being easy to get lost
when so many orbs mirage
the illusion of brightness?

Yes. Hot.

I know, I've been told.
Hilarious. I mean the weather.

Sweltering.

It’s like you are doing so good at living small.
Almost mastered reining in your ravenous joy

then a boy with lava hair
& a poet mouth
swaggers in,
wanting your number.

I remember, I am ten & as scrawny as a vine,
as wispy as the haunts my gray grandfather chants to

thanking them for their wisdom, praising them
for their crafty ways & their perfect plans.

Grandfather bends down again,
digs deeper into the soil, places my cut nails,
a tuft of hair & a photo of us in the small pit
along with two tiny seeds & a crisp white feather.

There is a boat that has a belly
that sags into the sea—it gorges on brown bodies.

My grandfather was a great conjurer,
but even the greatest rootworkers
can’t raise the dead.
So none of his spells are useful to me.

My mornings go like this:
stretch, mantra, offerings.

I have a makeshift altar
in my closet with crystals,
roots, photos & candles.

Each morning I place breakfast
on a white plate so the ancestors
can partake.

She always licked
the chicken bone—
almost glutinous.

He scrawls his number.

Penance for hovering & listening to my song.

a bundle of beer, a bouquet of clichés
because it's almost summer & it feels right.

I slink into her purse,
borrow her iPhone
& replace it with the most important root—
High John the Conqueror root.

Grandfather taught me it is a root to trip
the feet of Satan & his minions