For Lack Of Better Phrasings

I.

strike half of

my body

clear the impurities I

am desperately trying to hold

onto

halve my ancestors

erase them from your history

and all of your significance

will not be clean till

with only you I

identify

O you who

from same descent make

your promises

cleave my body and cleave

our experience

memory

photo, video

and the person I cannot

unsee

in any given mirror

like fathers like sons

II.

and so may I lay

be it

in vast & endless

clouds of the heavens,

in cadence & rhythm of

music I listen,

or in rivers & pools

from love

among remaining kin

in comes

silence—without

unwarranted sound to

cradle my body

asphyxiated the rumblings

of any thought

or idea

or nuanced inflection of voice

extinguished the flame

be there no reasoning, no

commentary, no

vibrancy nor shade

but I’d be there and

sit there and

I’d not think about you