notes on domesticity

there are no spoons left      too much tasting & stirring      the eggs

are cooked just so & speckled white with goat cheese but’ve gone

cold, of course      as always      but the toast is warm & unburnt

fake butter buttered      smeared with jammy fruit      a poet

has made a film      & she is on a screen      before an audience

rocking medium length locs      a black suit & heels      beautiful

in spite of  the lighting  which      feels      off      casts a  jaundiced

glow against her red-brown tone      she speaks of hometowns

from Tennessee to Mississippi      churches with photos gone

sepia & grainy with time      of time, what are we?      but

an accumulation of snapshots      a bit of eggshell      reddish

brown like her skin    & the yolks, an almost fluorescent yellow

like the light against her skin      & blotches of gray mold

blooming from the wheatish brown bread tossed to compost

& bread  &nbsp & bread      always so so much    its sour dough

does not disappoint like the proclamations of doctors    (always

white)    who say i’m overweight      but undressed before

the dusty mirror      i am just right & sometimes    just light

in the eye of a camera    shuttering & developing     i am

both shuttered & underdeveloped    or, overexposed     beneath

the harsh flash    i am pale     bashful skin of soaked walnuts

but still brown      just not enough      for my aesthetic

privileged drivel ain’t it?      to paint it any other way    to say

the way my eye sees beauty      the cherry-picked choices

the forwardness of fruit & flirt      she, with raven locs, speaks

of salt & dirt      & rituals of southern taste      what is wasted

on aesthetic      besides hunger?      i never ate the intestines

of a pig    my auntie cleaned      barehanded      in her good

wig    entire house      perfumed with the funk      of hog guts

me      punked toward puke      bougie rebuke      my preference

for another kind of funk      one that haunts my hands & sheets

long after the fun is done      another kind of      domesticity

how my palm      seeks shelter      between thigh shadow    &

the miracle of her damp heat      indelible      almost edible

a broken yolk leaking like sun      thru slatted blinds      our

scattered limbs      bleached in this wash of light      our

exposure at once northern & southern: pyramid of nag champa

slow burning      on the lid      of a pickle jar