THE HARBINGER

I cry so much, sometimes I feel like imma just turn into drops.
                                                                  —Moonlight (2016), dir. Barry Jenkins

the unknown part of me is facing you again, if you wouldn’t mind
looking away. let me compose myself. you know how I am
about my jagged edges. I promise, for the longest time I was good,
wanted softly, made every bed as if preparing my gravesite.
like Noah I waited, and in every dim stroke of lightning I saw the touch
of your hand, rippling like the skin over a lake. that day we got drunk
on cheap wine and you sobbed for hours into my shirt. I mean
all the precepts in the world were created to bate the loneliness
of men and dogs. when the prayers began just before sunrise, filtering in
from the other room, I stripped to my teeth and contemplated
my own color. the blue of my palms. like Nina Simone, all blue & blue
& blue, shivering in the early light. when the flood comes
I will not ask to be spared.