JACK DANIEL CHRISTIE

​​There's nothing for me in the earth,
I don't think my ancestors gave a shit
to tell you the truth. Dry bones
can't speak to me in dead tongues.
Feathers, dancing, many moons,
this or that teaching, pointless
all pointless. Words for children,
we're just children playing
dress-up in the rags of the dead.
Every word is a eulogy,
every ceremony a bloated funeral.
Nothing left for me
but a set of tits
to hang the string of keys I lost.

Hold me, bosom of a grandfather
I never knew. What shall be my teaching?
White people say sorry to me
for things they never did. Closure
is impossible. My father's house is empty
of all fathers. It is as if they
were never here. You can't teach a baby
who he will become. I want you,
I want you, I want you. Screaming
from the breast of nothing,
from the empty womb, the decayed,
magnified memory of it.
I forgive you your trespasses
transposed onto furniture.

Lately I've been writing about babies.
Oh dear. Am I pregnant with the world,
stumbling after an unborn baby?
We are not angels! My biological clock
tells me to turn into a leaden arrow.
When I fuck these days
my heart feels like it will explode
with love but mostly pressure.