poemed in the chair, handless, volts ready to run me, when they ask me what i regret

i poem multitudes multitudes multitudes.

trees!

y’all! they look like slow green explosions!

thick as the best fro in the clique!

a clique of them! a whole hood of soft jade!

stadium of limes how they look

gathered at the roots & at the leaves!

i’m a little beside myself, driving thru Mississippi

with tish, who is indeed a part of myself. she say

i wish i could take a picture of all this green

but it’s raining so we can’t step out to photograph

these perfect emerald lungs, these giant, ancient niggas.

they must be niggas, right? how brown & giving they are.

their fruit cousin to our hands, their flowers our songs.

i wonder if i went a year without lotion

if my skin would dry into bark & naps would drink

the day as my toes kinked with thirst?

do you think that’s how trees were invented?

a bunch of niggas stood still in a field waiting

for a sign from older gods, their breath a prayer

until breath was their only action. if i could

be a tree, i’d know God is real. if i could be

a tree, there’d be a heart knifed into me

that’d read i all my niggas!

if i could stand still in a field with tish & blaire

& josh & jamila & cam & aaron & nate

& angel & morgan & britteney & kelsey &

krysta & d’allen & kamia & dorian & thiahera

& nabila & safia & cortney & jayson & phillip

& lamar & hanif & eve & chris & dom & saeed

& brandon & amber & adora & britney & chinaka

& james & leland & devray & deangelo

& all the niggas whose names burst my heart

to joyful smithereens with their bright seeds

i would be the happiest tree

i’d let the birds live in me

glad to breathe in my constellation of green

budding stars. o my god of negros

& foliage, roots & roots & roots, here we are

black & ashy & filtering air, ready

to be the forest, deliver us into an axeless world!

sweet mother of chlorophyll & melanin!

branch & braid! dogwood & all my dawgs!

we stand, waiting to be made evergreen!

we see your promise in the noonstar!

hear your word in the rain!

my nig

this ain’t about language

but who language holds

those niggas who say my name

like it’s good news. i’m in love

with purple gums, the yellow stain

of front teeth, the bit of plaque

unbrushed away revealed when

my niggas laugh. o loves

i know God is for i have seen you

throw language in the air

& watched the clouds turn heavy

bronze, i have seen tears well

in the corners of your eyes

when you are overcome

& that little wet is all

the sea i need.

we are alive & amen

someone of us are dead

but they are alive in language amen

heaven be your blunted breath

your chapped & sharp shade

your ashy elbows & lotion prayers.