Overwhelming humidity and all of ussinking as the hyenas chewed their thawedchicken tenders and snatches of conversationcrept against the walls like jagged black light.We were a single organism, sweatycells rebelling against each other, kickingand howling over a piercing whistle in the centerof the room, a principal’s proclamationof EVERYONE BE QUIET! Another dayof many, we reminded…

A chain of maggot mandibles cuts across her exposed neck. Out of her beige skin, stripes jut like so many scabbed-over scars. You watch as knobbly body and humidity meet, distorting like she’s been decaying this whole time. Threads of scent rush into your nose, each one carrying the sweaty musk of infested root. At…

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…