On how you are an infection

Of course all art is omnidirectional,


but this is straight from

the bones of my grandmother’s joy

as she reaches for a new book

and the love bled into my lungs

by my mother’s womb.

This is straight at the sick-souled man

who taught me how to fear

instead of love.


This is for the children I have taught

and the women I have brought into my kitchen

and fed meatloaf, cake, cinnamon rolls.

They fed me love,

from the other side of fear,


What words can scrub away the places I have been

and the people who have placed me,

broken, here.