Charlottesville Curriculum

I am afraid of your transcendental death.
When people say think of a man. I think of a brown man.
Sometimes the earth grows khella because she can feel our suffering.
Yooooooing beneath Costco tikis.

When people say think of a man. I think of a white man.
I am meant to hold you in your oblique pain, your map-driven pain.
Yooooooing beneath Costco tikis.
I was drunk holding my teeth in like students.

I am meant to hold you in your oblique pain, your map-driven pain.
You die like an actor.
I was drunk holding my teeth in like students.
My body was a brown dog I shoved back into the water.

You die like an actor.
I beseeched but couldn’t stay out of the first person.
My body was a brown dog I shoved back into the water.
Hold me, hold me, hold me, holdmeholdmeholdme.

I beseeched but couldn’t stay out of the first person.
Where does it hurt, we say.
Hold me, hold me, hold me, holdmeholdmeholdme.
I am afraid of your transcendental death.

Source: Poetry (March 2018)