Come and tell me about the poems / you think up while smashing sleeves / of bamboo between rocks, flattening / the pulp into the sheets you later write on, / or fold into joss boats burned for an elder’s / afterlife.

shook from temporary asylums / of our beds by crack of leather belt / on back & a basket of screams— / dreamless night & home smelling / of dead herons dad wore on his hands

Yes, you are now here. I can see you / because you are mine. My soaring / & my failures. You are no longer / 
a stranger, uninvited & welcome

with blood pouring from her nose & mouth, / with her wedding dress, with bare feet, / with marquees announcing the end / of a woman, / with the man who could not tell the truth, / with sand dollars on a sill, with hip-stalk / 
& lipstick, with house party & / repast, with a bank of snow, / with sorrow & cinnamon,