for my mother, after Sonia Sanchez
It is late, mid-July
in the valley’s heat
sheathed in grooves.
I dribble a basketball,
don’t look down
at the earth
filming the leather.
I speak to god
for the first time,
accepting
the threshold
of my marrow,
that no one can tell me
about me
about entombing
the shrieks so deep
under the night,
like a lost keepsake,
twining my words
with the strain
of silk strings.
But you are here
near the end of a spiel
listening in the dark
on a webbed lawn chair
and heaven is somewhere
heavy under your soles.
Here is my spirit
turning back
to name the days
we’ll leave behind.
