Poetry

At a certain point, I lost you. I came to know it first
as a weather, the earliest hour of day breaking
on the bedsilk, its low rung of light, a pregnant silence.

Two boys, pink in their manhood, lean over a balcony, full 
of teeth. Below: a brown man, skin tired of holding his bones. 
Work falls in shadows around his feet. 
The Puget Sound is bluer than any dream or sky. The boys loom, pink.

                    toenail polish warped waxen from sand, you leave 
          your body behind again—mere rind, edges buzzing
from unsought touch. you end up in a skeleton

system says we’re not in charge of much else
but this. system’s [planter’s raj] & the damn 
tea. the Brits sell us, Lipton sells us, Tata 
sells us. when are we permitted to unload?