WIDOWS, ORPHANS, AND PRISONERS
From the 2024 Collection "Sixteen Odes From a Toad's Repose"
Two onyxes atop another
out where the witch frolics,
the signal clear,
it rang through my throat
so loudly I frightened myself:
RESPECT!
I remember how often my
Grandmother cried
for her daughter—
It was real pain.
I remember being a runaway,
I slept wherever
So long as not home.
And I hold the cold
laborious places people
are kept,
forget not them—
Shuttering
before each blink
I am never free
the company of
the martyrs,
I am present
within the vilest condition.
Forget them not,
nothing is ever
easy for anyone
tyrant.
