I made this poem braver than my mother.

                                        I severed my hands.

Now I write with the roaches
                                        that leave my mouth
                                                                 whenever I turn a man on like a light.

If ever you wanted to know my damage
visit a church, kiss a crucifix, love a dead thing and call it prayer.

If ever you wanted to know how I heal, drink the dusk.
Burn a ritual on your tongue. Bleed into a lover.

Leave your shadow everywhere
you think the light could find it.

One day mami started acting all funny right
                   and she made me hallucinate with her
                   and I could see the last time my father was a summer in bushwick
                   and mami hated that every girl was an open fire hydrant for him
                   and she never got to be the good guy, always had to be the fire
                   and one day she decided if ever she got be water she would be a flood.

I allow nothing inside of the eulogy.