Field Notes on Beginning

1.

I wear my grandmother’s bones like a housedress through the city.
Some nights the block tells me all its problems.
I’ll meet you at the top of the biggest rock in Rolesville
or on train headed to a reading in Queens, just tell me where. I promise
to gather your bones only for good.
I was not swallowed by the darkness between two buildings.
I don’t want to die in the south like so many of mine. I want to be

      carried back.

2.

I dreamed we were digging in a field in Rolesville
looking for an earth we knew the name of.
You stepped into the hole, looked behind you and gestured me in.
I saw every lover who held you while your children slept
in rooms of small heaters, you wrap the blankets so tight,
afraid of any cold that might get in.

3.

I said my goodbyes, my dead will not come. I will not see a cardinal in

      the city
so I drew one on my chest. A coop inside a coop inside of me.
Leaving is necessary some say. There is a whole ocean between you and

      a home
you can’t fix your tongue to speak. Others do not want me
no further than a length of a small yard, they ask where are you going

      Tyree?

Your mama here, you’ve got stars in your eyes. A ship in your

      movement.