i. Small Talk

a banker at
the table is
asking questions
he doesn't answer, like where
are you from?
and pulled
like a rabbit from
a stranger’s mouth
before I answer
my sentence
is spoken
all fluff none
of the bone
as if I won’t
and they’re not
wrong but laughing
and distracted
by a disease
I didn’t get
having spent
my weakness first
chance I had
like kitchen table
crumbs flung
over the edge
of the hand’s
eclipse
into the charity
of the unnamable
states of being
and things
where are you from.
my mother, why?
do countries mean anything to you
don’t worry
I hang my own
demons on the wall
and countries are meaningless
who gave you one anyway
what does it mean
do you take it

to bed
does it leave you
chaste and well-rested
don’t you know
countries are time
out of place, they’re soup
with a chalk
silhouette, crust
in the petri dish
of yesterday’s
experiment
waiting for a spit
now you’re
interested,
what’s your
name? no man
is an island
but a one-
woman country
I grew my limbs
opaque dancing
on slippery leaves in glass
mules drawn for
women around children’s
feet the size
of a howl
in a fist
a gift
I returned in time
to get here
and you let
yourself in
what, did you forget
a room was born
around your mother
when she danced alone
thinking about you
thinking about you
and no one
else before
you were born
and that’s
your name
why do you have
the financial times

in your hand? another
banker once said
to be relevant
all artists

should read it
and once I did
I decided to take
the words for
poetry not his
word for what
it takes to be
a poet 𝄐 my favourite
ones are not yet
born, busy or already
dead and it is amongst
ourselves that we extend that credit
what are you
doing here and who
taught you
to speak like that,
I was invited
but I’m not
a guest
I swallowed
this language
when it tried
to steal my breath
buying smoke
for my mother’s
homesick breath
daisy-chained
around her
homesick bed I grew
my tongue watching
television alone
talking back
until it was longer
than my uncut hair
in every
language why so
serious?
some raise peaks
some dig in, make
dough out
of darkness

learn language back
to the beginning
back to
single things

the eyes see
whole and fit
the hand
don’t look

at the words themselves
look at the way
the words wrap into
the next the way

the bride is
wrapped into two
people
talking about her
wrapped
around a drink
wrapped around a story
I just read
about her
seriousness
isn’t a boundary
in the end
it’s all
resonance not entropy
tell me
did the chuckle
at wit's
end come
first or
the immovable
sigh?

ii. FACT