i passed my lit exams with
colors flying to a precipice
the rundown colors of the other

of tribulation and witch hunting
i knew nothing but of the crude and
rude wife of bath i was well versed

medieval texts renaissance men
used abused erased to
historicize temporalities
of others

while lovers on a balcony bargain
a pound of flesh to a specter of
the rotten state betrayed
by cassius

of the ancient mariner these rimes echo
water water everywhere nor any drop to
drink discovery as glorious as thirst

many o and odes followed lyrical ballads
to psyche melancholy and immortality
which i turned to audes

i read and read and read pages
and pages and pages on fanny and
emma and jane and
elizabeth

i had the bourgeois gentilhomme
the puritan andromaque the
fantasy of le grand
meaulnes

the reality of la mare au diable the
dirt of les fleurs du mal carmen’s
dilemma saved the day

it still resonates l’amour est enfant
de bohème il n’a jamais jamais
connu de loi except the romani law

revived by dramouss la peste
et l’étranger vive la francopholie
noire et masculine blemished of its politics

the middle ages bled through the
middle passage passed down to the
middle class ripping through my
middle in a carnage

sixteenth-century white
brutality to twentieth-century
slow violence

i absorb the flow in oblivion
and erase myself to imitation
only to live in dejection

until i listen to my creole tongue
search my historical voice
hear my name and
ask what is in a name?

that which we call a rose
would not be the same rose
if we call it enn fler roz
or gulaab ke phulwa

i grab tagore’s Gitanjali
i breathe and finally reach
the Lorde.

poetry-magazinethe Lorde

the Lorde