Twisted girders protrude from the ground.

Skeletons lay tangled in vines

as nothing flutters by on the wind

waiting for the beginning of time

in the stillness and the silence.

What can you hear in the silence?

The sound of nothing running in the ruins

chewing the bloody feet of time.

The sound of nothing digging the ground

and nothing blown by the nothing wind

as nothing flowers on nothing vines.

And what can you see in the tangled vines?

Nothing struggling with nothing in silence

and nothing waving in the nothing wind

as nothing dances in nothing ruins

of nothing on the nothing ground

as nothing waits for the beginning of time.

What can you taste in the world after time?

Nothing fruit flavors from nothing fruit vines

grown in nothing fruit gardens on brown nothing ground

and nothing soup nothing in nothing stone silence

as nothing cooks nothing in the nothing ruins

of nothing sweet nothing blown by the wind.

And what can you smell on the nothing wind?

Nothing, nothing, the absence of time,

nothing wood burning in the nothing world ruins

and nothing fruit rotting on the nothing fruit vines

and nothing tea brewing in nothing world silence

and nothing spices not being ground.

And what can you feel on the ruined ground?

Nothing dust blown by the nothing wind

and nothing hands rubbing nothing in silence

as nothing does nothing to nothing in time

and nothing gets tangled in the nothing vines

of nothing, nothing, nothing in the ruins.

Nothing surrounds the nothing ruins on the nothing ground

but nothing vines of nothing in the nothing wind

of nothing, nothing, no time, nothing, nothing, nothing but silence.

And by “fix,” she means straighten. She means whiten.

But how do you fix this ship-wrecked history of hair?

The true meaning of stranded, when trusses held tight like African cousins in ship bellies, did they imagine that their great-grand-children would look like us, and would hate them how we do? Trying to find ways to erase them out of our skin, iron them out of our hair, this wild tangle of hair that strangles air.

You call them wild curls. I call them breathing. Ancestors spiraling.

Can’t you see them in this wet hair that waves like hello?

They say Dominicans can do the best hair.

I mean they wash, set, flatten the spring in any loc — but what they mean is we’re the best at swallowing amnesia, in a cup of morísoñando, die dreaming because we’d rather do that than live in this reality, caught between orange juice and milk, between reflections of the sun and whiteness.

What they mean is, “Why would you date a black man?”What they mean is, “a prieto cocolo” What they mean is, “Why would two oppressed people come together? It’s two times the trouble.”

What they really mean is, “Have you thought of your daughter’s hair?”

And I don’t tell them that we love like sugar cane, brown skin, pale flesh, meshed in pure sweetness. The children of children of fields. Our bodies curve into one another like an echo, and I let my curtain of curls blanket us from the world, how our children will be beautiful. Of dust skin, and diamond eyes. Hair, a reclamation.

How I will break pride down their back so from the moment they leave the womb they will be born in love with themselves.

Momma that tells me to fix my hair, and so many words remain unspoken. Because all I can reply is, “You can’t fix what was never broken.”

and cries. I pick her up, press her against my chest

and rub her back until my palm warms

like an old family quilt. “Daddy’s here, daddy’s here,”

I whisper. Here is the island of Oʻahu, 8,500 miles

from Syria. But what if Pacific trade winds suddenly

became helicopters? Flames, nails, and shrapnel

indiscriminately barreling towards us? What if shadows

cast against our windows aren’t plumeria

tree branches, but soldiers and terrorists marching

in heat? Would we reach the desperate boats of

the Mediterranean in time? If we did, could I straighten

my legs into a mast, balanced against the pull and drift

of the current? “Daddy’s here, daddy’s here,” I

whisper. But am I strong enough to carry her across

the razor wires of sovereign borders and ethnic

hatred? Am I strong enough to plead: “please, help

us, please, just let us pass, please, we aren’t

suicide bombs.” Am I strong enough to keep walking

even after my feet crack like Halaby pepper fields after

five years of drought, after this drought of humanity.

Trains and buses rock back and forth to detention centers.

Yet what if we didn’t make landfall? What if here

capsized? Could you inflate your body into a buoy

to hold your child above rising waters? “Daddy’s

here, daddy’s here,” I whisper. Drowning is

the last lullaby of the sea. I lay my daughter

onto bed, her breath finally as calm as low tide.

To all the parents who brave the crossing: you and your

children matter. I hope your love will teach the nations

that emit the most carbon and violence that they should,

instead, remit the most compassion. I hope, soon,

the only difference between a legal refugee and

an illegal migrant will be how willing

we are to open our homes, offer refuge, and

carry each other towards the horizon of care.

know each of the star's stories.

Remember the moon, know who she is.

Remember the sun's birth at dawn, that is the

strongest point of time. Remember sundown

and the giving away to night.

Remember your birth, how your mother struggled

to give you form and breath. You are evidence of

her life, and her mother's, and hers.

Remember your father. He is your life, also.

Remember the earth whose skin you are:

red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth

brown earth, we are earth.

Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their

tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,

listen to them. They are alive poems.

Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the

origin of this universe.

Remember you are all people and all people

are you.

Remember you are this universe and this

universe is you.

Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.

Remember language comes from this.

Remember the dance language is, that life is.

Remember.

are you.", reminds me of how everyone and everything and every living being, and how all of us are equal. There are billions of millions of creatures, living beings, animals, plants, humans, sea creatures, so much that takes a place in our day-to-day lives. We need to remember them. By doing this, we kill greed, we kill anger, we kill the want of power, the want of having more than others. We give birth to thankfulness and happiness. Slowing down reminds me of peaceful sleep music. The hush and slow notes of piano soothing one to sleep. This sound related to the poem as the poem is telling us to slow down ourselves and to take time and just admire the small things around us.

is a sport in which a person

rides down an active volcano

at speeds up to 50 miles per hour

using nothing but a wooden board.

When I heard about this activity,

I thought to myself,

it must be nice to feel so safe,

you have to invent new ways to

put yourself in danger.

When the body

thinks it may be swallowing its last breath,

the adrenal glands release hormones into the blood,

the skin becomes a cocktail of sweat and fear,

the heart gets claustrophobic,

the lungs become newlyweds

holding hands in a crashing airplane.

This is called an adrenaline rush.

I was 18 when I started driving.

I was 18 the first time I was pulled over.

It was 2 am on a Saturday.

The officer spilled his lights all over my rearview mirror,

he splashed out of the car with his hand already on his weapon,

and looked at me the way a tsunami looks at a beach house.

Immediately, I could tell he was the kind of man

who brings a gun to a food fight.

He called me son

and I thought to myself,

that’s an interesting way of pronouncing “boy.”

He asks for my license and registration,

wants to know what I’m doing in this neighborhood,

if the car is stolen,

if I have any drugs

and most days, I know how to grab my voice

by the handle and swing it like a hammer.

But instead,

I picked it up like a shard of glass.

Scared of what might happen if I didn’t hold it carefully

because I know that this much melanin

and that uniform is a plotline to a film that

can easily end with a chalk outline baptism,

me trying to make a body bag look stylish for the camera

and becoming the newest coat in a closet full of RlP hashtags.

Once, a friend of a friend asked me

why there aren’t more black people in the X Games

and I said, “You don’t get it.”

Being black is one of the most extreme sports in America.

We don’t need to invent new ways of risking our lives

because the old ones have been working for decades.

Jim Crow may have left the nest,

but our streets are still covered with its feathers.

Being black in America is knowing there’s a thin line

between a traffic stop and the cemetery,

it’s the way my body tenses up

when I hear a police siren in a song,

it’s the quiver in my stomach when a cop car is behind me,

it’s the sigh of relief when I turn right and he doesn’t.

I don’t need to go volcano surfing.

Hell, I have an adrenaline rush every time an officer

drives right past without pulling me over

and I realize

I’m going to make it home safe.

This time.

It slices a city in half

One half is on the east

The other half is on the west

.

How tall is this wall?

How thick is it?

How long is it?

Even if it were taller, thicker and longer

It couldn’t be as tall, as thick and as long

As China’s Great Wall

It is only a vestige of history

A nation’s wound

Nobody likes this wall

.

Three metres tall is nothing

Fifty centimetres thick is nothing

Forty-five kilometres long is nothing

Even a thousand times taller

Even a thousand times thicker

Even a thousand times longer

How could it block out

The clouds, wind, rain, and sunshine of the heavens?

.

And how could it block out

The currents of water and air?

.

And how could it block out

A billion people

Whose thoughts are freer than the wind?

Whose will is more entrenched than the earth?

Whose wishes are more infinite than time?

.

Scenes to look at in delight,

Food to try and places to go

Sounds like the perfect site!

Fire and chaos everywhere

People look like they have drowned

Passengers desperately trying to save their children

While they lie dead on the ground.

Served with some colorful berries,

I bite one, tasting sour and sweet

But my favorite are cherries

I look at the toast in disgust

It tastes awfully bitter,

I throw up, dying inside

Turns out my sister put in some glitter

in the coffee cup

skates

past the rings

of previous events,

reaching

for the rim of the world,

trying to escape

the hell that lies

waiting

at the bottom.

have small furry pelts

hard to keep from getting sticky.

Their languages

are dance and telepathy.

Inside each bee

is delicate machinery

a noisy watch mechanism.

Some kamikaze freely for the Empress.

Others, at the end, look back with pride

on an 8 oz jar in the supermarket.

Whoi! Sister, brother, mi uncle – gone

Whoi! Daughter, mi son, mi family – gone

Whoi! What stain have I bestowed?

.

She held her son, the flesh melted from his bones,

Tears streamed down her cheeks, like raindrops down the window screen.

Unexplainable, undeniable, but beneath the ground he must go

– Singing, mourning, cries of pain –

Who next will suffer this dreadful stain?

.

The sunset kisses the Blue Mountain range,

Darkness covers the Kingston plains.

Tomorrow we shall start again –

Who next will suffer this dreadful stain?

.

The sun seeps over the Caribbean Sea,

Today my brother I shall not see.

Like the petals from roses – gone too soon –

Red ribbons I left on his tomb.