in memory of those who seek refuge from flood and fire in honor of those who move oceans and speak rivers into dry land
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in celebration of Mama Julie, whose waters bore me and my own, on her 100th birthday, may I always know faith as deep, as wide, and as far as yours
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living, alive, alive, living—you can tell by the birds
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how they run like water /
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driblets in the sky
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we have many mamas / one
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a Black widow with a ruined name
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her lover
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consumed /
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the wave
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don’t come no more
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she is a quiet flood
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sand man slipping / light tan and
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missing
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I am pulled at the waist by
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a tragedy I cannot give
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time to
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this city of daughters / arms
hollow bottles / broken
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I am the marrow / inside
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with / holding
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mourning, we reach out to open suns / who bleed into our longing
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pile in glittered shards / look out into the salt and drink
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this house is not a home / it is / a boat
drowning
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/ it is / a luxury to have somewhere / else
to go
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