after Gordon Parks: Untitled, Chicago, Illinois,from the series Metropolitan Baptist Church (1953) Losing form beforethe everlasting a favorof your kind owed notto the beginningsexempt from the ethicof joy or those whocould not show youthe luxuries of paindifference betweeneach dig at deeptissue solvedby the therapist whosewrist leads eitherthe moan or musclejudgeless before harmI keep on running …
Listen to Alice McCormick read “Follow the Signs”: Eons ago, when I was young, my family and I went yard sale-ing. That was what we called it. We started about Memorial Day and finished about Labor Day. On clear, sunny Saturday mornings when the hot dew boiled off the fresh lawns, all four of us …
We could road trip to Tennessee from New Mexicothe kids & I we could be brave they think I’m bravewe could unroll our bags & throw our chanclas in the grasswe could barefoot it we could unlearn the constellations& learn them again unhitch their stories from their nameslike the names I’ve taken into my belly …