Tennessee
This morning, from a plastic film canister, 
we took the two tabs of acid we bought in New Orleans, 

called our mothers after pressing them to our tongues, 
and wandered past ourselves 

into an imagined city, untranslatable 
as grief. I thought only our sadness 

would outlive us, not these bodies in the landscape,
rearranging under the cruel August sun. 

When I say, We’ll have to be each other’s mothers, 
it’s too late to ask the mirror-light of the river 

to forgive us, as our sweat-soaked shirts 
begin to cool, and we guess our way back 

in the dark. Reader, if you believe one thing I tell you, 
let it be this. As Jesús sketched my portrait

in the dim light of a rented basement room, 
I sat on the floor and wrote, I’m sorry 

I couldn’t be there for you. And yes, I was high 
and in love and crying, but I really did feel 

my father’s spirit move through my body, 
that he wrote those words, not me. 
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