Killing Troy Davis

A sentence is ringing in my head tonight.  It is a group of words that have long walked around in my mind, intimidating my other thoughts, humbling the notions I attempt to construct about the behaviors of our world. When I used to pray in the pews of my dad's church, I would often roll these words between folded palms, startled by their simple weight and all but crushed by the implications of their uttering.

"They know not what they do."

To All of Us

this is to climb a staircase to a room of sleeping loved ones,
to find a dream catcher

wriggling with strangled life

visions tangled in the lattice

this is for the clipping
let the leather dangle, dead and maimed

you, also, have wanted to rid your ankles of these laces

I Am the Pristine

I am the pristine
and fruitful
you say god made me and was happy
today he and i sat watching the sunrise

and told each other of our families

he sat in a woven-plastic folding chair

which his skin stuck to

and i fashioned my seat

from a swirling of my twig fingers

and a kiss of river water