Listening to poet after poet,
Finally beginning new books
Wrapping my mind around movements
I try to remember everything
That is bigger than this love
I am remembering
The rhythm of broken french
Spoken on lavender colored porches,
Sisters laughing away humiliation,
Their stories are bigger than this love.
I am tasting momentum
Digging steady into new soil
Discovering why so many of us
Move from city to city to shape change
Why we claim and create
New communities and spaces,
Then come back home with eyes
Wide enough to see the shapes of our roots.
I am separating tangled branches
Knotted in privilege, brown skin, and shame
Finding passion and peace for a body
Twice removed from a diaspora
My evolution is bigger than this love,
This hunger that sprung from
A spark of understanding
The many shapes of reciprocation
I waited for it to pull me out
Of some adolescent hesitation
Nurture me into strength
Kiss me into wholeness
But I’ve learned there is no hope
For the truth of these delusions
Without the consciousness of everything
That must be bigger than them
And as everything shapes, grows, and heals
I hope that one day I might find
A love that is big enough for it all
