the Lorde

i passed my lit exams with

colors flying to a precipice

the rundown colors of the other

of tribulation and witch hunting

i knew nothing but of the crude and

rude wife of bath i was well versed

medieval texts renaissance men

used abused erased to

historicize temporalities

of others

while lovers on a balcony bargain

a pound of flesh to a specter of

the rotten state betrayed

by cassius

of the ancient mariner these rimes echo

water water everywhere nor any drop to

drink discovery as glorious as thirst

many o and odes followed lyrical ballads

to psyche melancholy and immortality

which i turned to audes

i read and read and read pages

and pages and pages on fanny and

emma and jane and

elizabeth

i had the bourgeois gentilhomme

the puritan andromaque the

fantasy of le grand

meaulnes

the reality of la mare au diable the

dirt of les fleurs du mal carmen’s

dilemma saved the day

it still resonates l’amour est enfant

de bohème il n’a jamais jamais

connu de loi except the romani law

revived by dramouss la peste

et l’étranger vive la francopholie

noire et masculine blemished of its politics

the middle ages bled through the

middle passage passed down to the

middle class ripping through my

middle in a carnage

sixteenth-century white

brutality to twentieth-century

slow violence

i absorb the flow in oblivion

and erase myself to imitation

only to live in dejection

until i listen to my creole tongue

search my historical voice

hear my name and

ask what is in a name?

that which we call a rose

would not be the same rose

if we call it enn fler roz

or gulaab ke phulwa

i grab tagore’s Gitanjali

i breathe and finally reach

the Lorde.