I understood you today.
It swept past in an instant,
firm but gentle as hovering beyond a breaker,
gripping sand with splayed toes.
Rolling lift in warm saline,
planting me softly home.
The hands of God touched her golden child.
I gazed skyward hoping for repeat.
Aisle five’s dingy perforated tiles regarded me.
I winced at their accusation.
Selfish.
I seem the mark of all vile and foul.
This sour milk, this skull
a crucible of scrambled transmission.
So hateful am I, my name can not be spoken
within your country.
I’ve cowered at the gates while children point,
whispering in hushed awe.
Fetid mythic evil to virgin eyes.
You have banished me to aisle five.
I smelled your fear.
Not what one would expect,
it touched my face and filled my mind.
Light and thin yet tangible as custard.
I saw its face, its smile in no way unpleasant.
My own fear bullies and squeals,
pulling my hair with sticky fat infant fists.
Impatient.
Yours faced me, genteel on your behalf.
Our cheeks brushed in aisle five.
Water spun on parallel walls
while fluid roared in my brain.
Equalized.
The universal solvent surrounding, blood within.
There has been no adolescent need
to slice my borders,
achieving parity through fractional anihilation,
each score a murder.
I reel, sneakers producing painful murmurs
on aisle five’s wet linoleum.
Afraid.
I see us arm in arm, tear stained and weary.
Comrades in frosting, you once said
“no one understands what we know.”
I stand alone in aisle five. Rainbows right. Africa left.
