Staceyann Chin

Santa Barbara...

... warm California sun easing me gently
out of my Jamaica

sun kissed memories
of tangles

and familiar
bursts of light and splendid decay

spiraling
down Ani and the new poems

and the New Show to Open in April
wait for me New York

I be coming back with these stories
and I will need someone

to tell them to

LA was yesterday
and the day before that

and the missed flight before that one
hours in the Terminal

and I thought I was going to die
from the faces
trying not to look directly

into anyone's eyes
committment is a bitch

friendship
and how love is never a straight line

to anywhere
roads twisting new truths
out of old wives

tales to tell
my loves in these places
with snow

Denver
and I don't quite know what that

will smell like
after the weeks in Cologne
and Montego Bay

Kingston is where
my heart beats with most precision

women named June
and April

and my mother
who is Mae

in the middle
the name between what her mother
intended to call her

and what they say our fathers
should stake claim

to
parts of me
not belonging to anyone

one wild summer of love
memory and actuality

have collided
smash
crackle
pop goes the weasel called Old Lady Time

Time is a motherfucker
lovers become mothers
become the breasts on which we suckle our way back to

believing in our bodies
being beautiful

again
you make me feel
beautiful

with the lights on
Jamaica

and all the shadows flanking
our yin
yank me back to exploring

why I love the salt slick
of excitement

and things perpetually new
even after so long

I wax shiny
under the gaze of Jamaica

friendship
and building a new trust

what I have said
is true

to the most honorable interpretation
of my understanding

you may believe me
as much as you can rely on my frail judgment

human and erring
I intend my best as presented

to myself
when I am most accounting

responsibility
washes all hands with the guilt

of association
I am glad you were there
with me

with all the frantic parts
rusted inflexible

with time

forgive me
both of you

forgive me

while I press steady towards
some absolution
of self

till I earn the right to sin again,
Staceyann

Posted by staceyann at January 17, 2005 07:35 PM