This is what we have / we do what we can.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Me, I find myself reaching for music, back into the depths of the archives. Sometimes it is soca (touchless),...
i want to talk about respect. / how even the desperate deserve it.
If you study international relations, or humanitarian law (which is the law of war and of armed conflict, which may or many not overlap with human rights...
Wake up, people, examine your minds
Songs in the key of Independence It's amazing to you I'm sure / We didn't get Independence before This is the voice of the people / The people in the...
I am treacherous with old magic
I had forgotten, or suppressed, the particular kind of knowing discomfort — indeed, a whole-body unease — that accompanies seeing women in highly visible...
when we speak we are afraid / our words will not be heard
On Friday night I attended the screening of the remastered version of The Spook Who Sat By The Door, which I’d never seen and with which I was only vaguely...
The ice sheets will melt. / Things will get ugly.
Most people don’t get to have it all; most people are fighting for just a fraction of what’s left. The people with the biggest share fight hardest to keep...
the time is always now.
I knew this week I’d invoke Baldwin; I didn’t know, as I was thinking about which of his lyrical sentences I’d start with, that the one I would keep going...
love that casts a widening pool of light,
When you have moved constantly, over decades — cities, states, countries — putting art on walls falls down the priority list. For a combination of reasons,...
even as each moment is an answer.
Sometimes you plan to spend an evening in a botanical garden and sometimes instead you are obliged to stare at red and green numbers flashing across a...
do what has to be done, again and again.
You do not usually know when you’re living through something that might later be described as a “turning point”. But sometimes, sometimes you do know. At...
What strengthened me, for you was lethal.
At some point we each have to navigate the boundary between informed and overwhelmed; to accept that there is a difference between opinion and judgement. I...
Let your laughter fill me like a bell.
I have long believed that you rise up or fall down to the level of your best group text. This is not a novel idea; many a reasonable and unreasonable...
I had long hair and it was political.
I do not remember when I first realised how annoying I found the phrase “identity politics”, and whether that preceded or was a consequence of realising how...
He hears the hum of a boy’s dream
This week, a photo to accompany a poem. a dream. Attribution No car must splash him. No car drive too near to his shadow. This man carries the world’s most...
She was the spring whence arose that irresistible river
Even when I was much younger, I did not much enjoy celebrating my own birthdays. Too much direct attention, too much –existential angst. It is perhaps...
I heard the sea and asked, / "What language is that?"
If you, like me, appreciate sentences then you might consider subscribing to the Perfect Sentences newsletter, expertly curated by Ingrid Burrington1. I just...
Blues come dressed like introspective echoes of a journey.
What do you think will happen? I cannot always tell if this is a mere question or if this is a prayer. Sometimes it is both. Rarely is it neither. All around...
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
A rough week for migraines, so shout out to new medications and the ability to pay for them. A Saturday spent in the company of confetti and excellent...
how most / poems to mothers must / begin
Mother, I'm tryingto writea poem to you—which is how mostpoems to mothers mustbegin—or, What I've wantedto say, Mother...but weas children of mothers,even...
can’t be known except / in the words of its making,
Every day, a deep breath. A considered response. An eyebrow maintained at an appropriate level. So many ways to be arch. The same playbooks, the same...