Misunderstood Creatures

(a cento)

the black snakes that made a provisional home under the bow
of my dead & was made of that dreaming.

                   Here I eat you. Here, a food

the sea was vaporous and the boats were ants stranded in the air

I taste the fruit whose coarse skin
is eaten by beasts who've never tasted honey.

A shining breakfast, a breakfast shining, no dispute, no practice, nothing, nothing at all.

Muscle in the water like dregs of an abattoir.

Your pain the astrologer said A gift
for others

Like dogs for others they trained us with trays:

Meats and herbs seethed in oil and acid.

nothing is truly mine
except my name.

Worried my love's not worth much, but I always
come when called.

Bulbous buttercup, & oleander throw shade, & We live



Source Texts:
"Nothing Promised," Avia Tadmor; "SoMa." Hieu Minh 
Nguyen; "Immigrant Song at a Food Truck," Weijia Pan; 
"Capybara Hot Springs," Yaxkin Melchy Ramos; "Tender 
Buttons [Breakfast]," Gertrude Stein; "Somber Bull," 
Andrea Cote; "Empires," Anthony Joseph; "Task," 
Ari Banias; "Catering," Brian Tierney; "Cattiveria," 
Sandra Lim; "Passing Through,"Stanley Kunitz;"Self-
Portrait as Hereboy, Sethe's Dog in Beloved," Saeed 
Jones; "Lauren Oya Olamina Explains Earthseed 
to Ernest Hemingway," L. Lamar Wilson