I never thought I was different for having brown skin. I remember a buck-toothed little girl with wild hair–”dirty” brown hair as her mama would say–beaten and tamed into beautiful cornrowed braids kissing her love-touched scalp.  This little girl with deep, dark brown eyes wore snakes of Medusa in copper, gold, and mahogany all over…

You are August’s child born in the heart  and the heat       of the summer you braid silver tinsel into the roots of your goldenrod hair  and pretend not to notice the sun bleeding       out  of you and pooling onto the floor. You ladle up the light      …

I remember      I saw a woman like a calla lily     draped in gold     I was a child I hid behind the skirt of my mother in a street shrouded        with people I was a tigerfish swimming     through saltwater I cried    there was a…

With you, I caught butterflies in mason jars and placed them in the kitchen  sink, even from our shadows in the backsplash, I would see your eyes as my moon and want to swim in them. Come swim in the lakes with me, now we can get lost in the waters without drowning and jump…

She smiles at me and chews her orange slices slowly. They’re her favorite fruit. My mother’s table is littered with books with titles like Anatomy of a Moth and Order Lepidoptera: A Study. The books have the same rough texture as a moth, but they have yet to fly away back onto the shelves. She…