poem where I be & you just might

      I am sitting next to you & you are not there,
you’re a frameless heat, mass of ruptured air.

      to be clear, you are the spit & liver it takes
to be human & I want it & I think you want me

      to have it all, but I know
what it’s like to be one of the few blacks

      for miles. I know what our people think
about me, or maybe us. I know

      God’s flaming eye, I stare into it always
dying to blink, irises cracking like commandment stones.

      I get it.
      I get it.

      & it might be how you say
my name like a testimony

      or how I graze your hand
& yours doesn’t move, but my body

      made up a rumor about your body
& wants to prove it true. forgive him.