With a humdrum skip with a heartbeat thud
You’re up
Cat paw purring and despair washing fresh-stale-fresh long day looming I could just eat you up
Remember Goree Island?
Cobblestone streets and
Pink red orange yellow stucco
There was wrought iron
Terra cotta
Geraniums for Gods sake
Beauty that was instantly recognizable
And at the end of the island the unspeakable prison, the point of no return, the farthest point west on the African continent, real Abandon all Hope
And down on the beach, by the boats, a little girl who hands you a shell
And she won’t go in the water
The water eats people.

I need to keep moving
My dumb sadness has nothing on the weight of the world -
Or it joins it, another feather fluff-drifting down to land on an unweighable mountain of grief
People sell each other, the water eats people, my stomach hurts, the world will never be enough for you, I’ll never be enough for anyone, no one is immune
Like a pink sky, like an old tree, it keeps unfolding
The world hurts; we’re part of it.

For Lynn