Poems About L

There are things I should have told you sooner.

My mother gave me her worry—that gene that runs through women in my family like a river that never learned to rest.

The first month, I kept calling. Not on purpose.

It's not the grand gestures. It's not the airport sprint, the boom box on the lawn.

Black history is not a month. Black history is the woman who sat down and the man who stood up and the children who walked into schools that didn't want them.

My grandmother's kitchen had no recipe book. She measured everything

I'm going to say what I mean. No metaphors. No curtains.

A child asks: why is the sky blue? And you start to answer and realize you don't actually know.

My therapist says I hide in metaphors.

Quédate, no porque yo te lo pida, sino porque la noche es más larga.

The bell is ringing somewhere. Not for you—not yet— but don't ask who it's for.

My mother's hands could find a fever through a forehead, could tell a melon's ripeness