         How fun is it to be “at risk,” to flicker
like the monarchs born daredevils?
+
Black, I have a 50% chance
to get HIV in my lifetime.
+

I love my brother.
        He still calls me a faggot

                when he’s angry. I think he loves me.
+

A glass mirror is a good comedian, edgy and reflective.
Though my brother is more
like a lake when he kills a crowd
of me. I walk in and somehow another me
survives to do the same.
+
I once asked a man to hit me and call me a faggot.
I thought I’d like it.
+
  The ember is the best unit of sex.
It left a kaleidoscope
in my temple of stained glass: torches
cast through the image of a torch, a race
between the flames and the string
of saliva thinning—
+
An arrogant priest
thinks he knows what’s on the other side
of the glory-
hole.

+
Candles are the worst at worship
and war. They cry silently
as they burn,                            rimming
the darkness,                   running
themselves
down
to the base.         The vigil
+
is over.
Submerged, I saw the lanterns blinking
above water before they, too,

+

sunk.
Is the poem an ember,
a lake,
or a hole
I run my tongue through?

+
The answer is, I loved my brother, then
I loved him.

poetry-magazineButterflies

poetry-magazineMatthew 6:28—Sonnets

poetry-magazineThe Sun, in Lagos

Butterflies

Matthew 6:28—Sonnets

The Sun, in Lagos