It's a Love Poem

I know
That centrifugal force, blooming in wind
and ink in napkins,
frizz and garlic salt
The jokes about me have a thimble
Of truth: I did see God
at the height of all four seasons
Shimmering, like fine craft glitter, on the other side
of a chain link fence
Surely, I wasn’t the only one
The boys of my youth taught me to climb
and hop
in case we had to outrun the cops
into a kind of freedom
that had no end.
I’m trying to tell you
It may be an exaggeration to claim
that I have never been in love like this
but I am
painting a coastline, a silhouette,
like its contours are
the neck
of my hometown
and I am closing in from the waters,
swimming.



From Cartoon Logic, Cartoon Violence (Baobab Press, 2022). All rights reserved. Reprinted with the permission of the author.