apricots & brown teeth in browner mouths gnashing dates & a clementine’s underflesh under yellow nail & dates like auntie heads & the first time someone dried mango there was God & grandma’s Sunday-only song & how the plums are better as plums dammit & i was wrong & a June’s worth of moons & the kiss stain of the berries & lord the prunes & the miracle of other people’s lives & none of my business & our hands sticky & a good empty & please please pass the bowl around again & the question of dried or ripe & the sex of grapes & too many dates & us us us us us & varied are the feast but so same the sound of love gorged & the women in the Y hijab a lily in the water & all of us who come from people who signed with x’s & yesterday made delicacy in the wrinkle of the fruit & at the end of my name begins the lot of us

dogs!

scooby doo was trying to tell us something when every time that monster mask got snatched off it was a greedy white dude.

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in ’97 a black comic gets on stage says, you ever notice how white dogs be like woof woof & black dogs be like ruff ruff motherfuckaaaaa!!

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the dog upstairs won’t shut up & i’ve thought of ending his noisy little life but i have to remember he matters, he matters & if i did, the brown girl upstairs would cry forever.

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dog (n.): a man’s best friend. (see: fetch, roll over, K-9, good boy, put down.) ex. my dog died, i had to do it with my own hands.

dawg (n.): a man’s best friend. (see: blunt rolled already, handshake, my nigga, put me on) ex. my dawg died, he did it with his own hands.

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dogs in this house eat the same thing we do. we eat greens, they eat greens. fried bologna, neck bones leftovers.

… he died from the suga, the gout or whatever came for big mama came back for the dog.

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everybody love lassie, but what about sounder?

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possible rite of passage number 37: graduating from outrunning the block’s dogs to outrunning the block’s police.

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i too been called boy & expected to come, heel.

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what animorph did you want to be? i wanted to be the boy who turned into the bird limp in the dog’s wet mouth, holding me toward his human saying, i made this for you.

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the dog upstairs needs to stop running his mouth talking plenty shit i can hear him up there fool don’t think i understand he don’t know i got a bark too teeth too thumbs & a terrible child’s mind.

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something about Air Bud felt … the talented obedient beast, the roar of the eggshell crowd.

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dogs aren’t racist but they can be trained to be as can the water as can the trees as can gravity as can anything marked by a pale hand & turned bloodgold, a bitter king’s magic touch.

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