April 18

“Maria”

For nearly a year you and I have worked
in the same polygon hallway,
me cleaning up emotional debris and
decorating,
you scrubbing down the toiletbowls we refuse to flush
and smiling.
Even though I call myself an activist
the only things I know about you are
your first name, the color of your iPod,
and that for two months you used your lunch breaks to
knit 30 pairs of delicate white
baby booties.

April 12

“I always wonder where the sharpies come from”

The words saluting across the cardboard
(ragged for effect)
said “Everyone could use a little help sometimes.
Thank you.”
Our eyes touched through the window,
him squatting on the concrete with a paper cup and
weariness,
me perched on the summit of a barstool chair in Starbucks,
with hot tea, Virginia Woolf, and
guilt.

April 5

"bus stop man"

his eyes were like looking at the moon through pollution:
intimately acquainted with edges,
yellow and somehow more full than
the bruises would warrant;
“the only religion I like is taoism” he said
“and sometimes islam” and when I tried to say
“islam is from the word for peace” this
empty whiskey bottle of a man
with more journey in his gums than entire teeth said
“salaam alaikum, I know” like the years
I spent convincing my brother that
brown, terrorist, and muslim
are not synonyms
was a candle that did not deserve the lightning
of the thing I called “double standard” and this brittle bus stop man
called “racism.”

April 4

"homeland"

A person's homeland could be referred to as ko'u kula 'iwi,
“my plain of bones”
in Hawaiian,
and I think I have any right
to call myself
a citizen
like my bones are any whiter
than yours.