November 2015

we were riding out to an abandoned farmhouse
on his pearl black Triumph

deaf to the sound of bleating sheep

that was when he told me it was the same model
James Dean had swapped for
three days after

they’d finished filming East of Eden

I tried...

In the story of my life there is a field
filled with chicory, daisies, and mayflowers.
It’s the field behind my childhood house.
In summer, I used to spend hours

lying in it looking at clouds
before my mother brought us to the town...

May I ask you who
your grandmother died

Her blackness
you pretended we’d assume
a servant’s      in the photograph

May I ask
did she die herself?

I know you all light
under an umbrella     don’t tan
and she could be seen

as she had been made...