My Faith Unfolds Itself

                after Faith Ringgold’s exhibit, “Black is beautiful,” at the Picasso Museum, 
                Paris, 2023


like a ribbonless plait:
           the rain outside descends in strands: 
percussive opera for the sheltered:

           petrichor of hominy and green: 
grief everywhere, all at once : and then
           the sun : reminds me I’m not new:

they are my dowry : the gone ones
           and their light : refracted through 
the body’s fluids : o rivers : how to

           marry threads of water with faith: 
predates language : but the word was
           the beginning : have we come this far by fate:

roots fracture, forget, then return : curse
           the pattern of rupture then mend : not unlike 
the making of a quilt, or muscle : broth born

           of fire and water : fists full of ephemerals: 
blood-honey : water always finds her way:
           I plump and soften : like soaked grain

Read more from Issue 21.1.