 sunset at the Pacific out here we're made of cyclone fence and boxes where we store folded sunsets they could break your will the dance of being hauled away for sitting for not taking the invitation to leave not for now and the ritual movements will make you keen old songs that you should know will drag from your tongue the language of the gods of pavement accusation the doors and windows in this place don't open we don't remember how to build them that way and the ships come and go to a different schedule and practicing reading without the glasses and now I can't quite make it out with them on how's that in the ceremony of belonging we decorate each other with spirals of razor wire and dance ourselves unbalanced unfixable we burn the family house down moth goddess of death seduce me we will cut each other to watch the wounds heal admire the strength we stress measure ourselves against and know that we can't win the fight we don't start circus of the afflicted I will be your ten in one show we know the ceremony the song the poultice and still we pick at one another like a scab we choose the scar not everybody knows this about me but I'm an awfully good shot safety on I wake up every morning with a Glock in my mind's hand sewing strips of smoke dear hide over grip barrel trigger squeeze don't blink I pick old ceramic patterns bead them over the slide over the magazine release barrel become ripples on a river blue beads five at a time count carefully every morning a raven comes rubs beak against my cheek struggles off with the dead weapon I don't know where she goes holding it down holding it quiet sights permanently dimmed trigger guarded when Doug applause I can't breathe sing softly the prayers of visibility and for the survivors sing twice last breaths on sidewalk reveal hidden poems of history the chewed and ugly thoughts that catch on themselves snarled tangled lethal sing prayers old songs of being seen sing our hope for ourselves last breath and the chant begins who is worthy who chose badly who wins who decides so their names neatly on the quilts of story sing sing twice teach the songs war song if you've dreamed of invisibility is a quiet place with no edges if you've practiced invisibility at the supermarket and in the streets if you built your own worlds gradually opened the windows added mirrors one by one and sometimes were surprised that you cast a reflection at all if you had to teach yourself to speak word by word in a language that excluded you and then gradually created yourself there from each coaxed letter from each sound invented in your moments of transparency if you are one of the translucent if you create worlds from your own flesh meditate on the pavement fade steadily in your birth home if you sing songs from outcast cultures rejected identities if you're illegal on the streets in the toilets in the schools and you still build lay strong words words that can support the weight of a person words that can be nailed over windows the storm is now and maybe the storm is always we can see you we can see you still I have two more this is actually written for a person who is wearing a hat from my dad's the one of the ships my dad served on in the Navy he's flaking old beer bottles into precarious leaves the summer fog is thick and the shards click and ring and drip in absolute June green how long can you hold your breath there's a dry smell in the air sticky and bitter how long can you dance to the rhythm of urban leaves the foliage of walking away something must have moved because he wasn't here last week there's children at Noe and Market tell their mother this city is filthy we don't want to be here well you know you weren't invited but you're here now and the seasonal election postcards amulets pages from a book or writing about salvation the postcards blow down Sanchez like fall there is no other place nowhere else but here I'm gonna finish with this one I keep saying it's the last time I'm gonna read it it hasn't been yet we'll see parent and child cycle one when the first pain hit I went up on my toes birth dances you and all of the people that stood there breathing for me speaking just for myself were of exactly no use my son and I we did that dance together became two people it's another kind of storytelling to we took the stereotypes in our hands and tore them up the worlds we have created together parent and child person and person you curled there and whispered stories of healing into my fever dreams we have adventure 3 cleaning grandpa's desk we found the Mary of Shestahova her black skin rendered in silver metal Isis by any other name still brought her lover back from the dead and claimed to son from him Isis the sky and wisdom wrapped in blue as I have been just feeling the heartbeat the damp skin the wonder of a new person for we carefully mark the places where the world changes pack our borders our toothbrushes our walking shoes rewritten in every watershed every story shed children of corn walking north the sons of corn perform the magic as they were taught and the people were fed we are dusted with pollen we are walking north 5 the child shows me the mark of the scorpion on his leg I show him the mark of the spider on mine we have walked dangerous miles he and I separate parts of the same story the gods took a handful of cornflower blood and we were born danced went up on our toes you may have been born differently but this is our story six children in cages this prayer and genetic memory offers me panic stolen children the sacred geometry is shattered we carry our borders we who are blood and corn we reach across rivers we call to our cousins we burn the kopal seven this part of the poem isn't written yet and we're all going to have to write it together thank you I need to start carrying different hats because now I'm going to tell you who's going to read here next month Cassandra Dalit MK Chavez and a very good friend of mine who is also an Oklahoma girl named Jenny Davis you haven't heard of yet her book isn't out yet but when it comes out you will all hear of her she's pretty remarkable thank you so much for coming thank you to the readers can we have another round of applause thank you to Ken who takes such good care of us everyone John Smalley who does very much the same thing the library I am restarting my online poetry journal and I I'm accepting the first one's curated but from then on out I'm accepting submissions I would also like you to consider if you have a poem about libraries our library won a big award and I would I'm collecting poems that honor it so poems about books poems about libraries yes and if any of you don't have my email address come ask for it take care