She doesn’t believe in Divine Providence anymore.
The only deity she knows is the Deus Ex god
out of the calculator, reading hit and miss percentages
like survival rates and precise absolutes like
there’s no government funding for non lethal forms of cancer.
Her LCD totals hospital expenses
that read more like a telephone number
than a disposable income. I want to reach out to her,
turn her calculator upside down
so the number it shows – 55,178,513.45
becomes SHE IS BLISS
She has to learn that sometimes things get reversed,
that sometimes words come out as numbers
and growth comes out as cancer
and sometimes children are already born
with a full set of wings.
Her granddaughter leans to 1 side
because wings were meant to fly
but she’s got this brand new pair of feet
she just can’t wait to try out
and she hasn’t improved much on her birth weight
because feathers come at a premium
but I hear they can wrap closed pretty tight,
keep her shielded and warm through the twilight,
and when they open they can open gloriously wide
so she can be any size she wants to be.

Dear Boston University,

There’s a rumor that Warren Towers
was designed by a guy
who used to build prisons
and if that’s true then I’ve got
Spiritual Stockholm Syndrome.
Boston University is a prison
like my ribcage is a prison for my heart;
like tree sap turns to amber
and all you can do when you see it
is ask yourself, how does God
make things so beautiful?
I was accepted to study computer science and math
but figured there’s the rest of my adult life
to worry like a robot. Instead, I got
to sit in the same classroom
where Robert Lowell taught Sylvia Plath;
where someone taught me
that not everything has to be a huge project;
that small things, though pug ugly
like certain breeds of dog,
can still earn your love if they work hard enough.
Hey, if Storrow Drive can sound
like a beach then anything’s possible.
Possible like reversing the curse
after 86 years of crossed fingers.
Possible like I lived here for 4 years
and I still don’t know the difference
between Inbound and Outbound
but this city couldn’t tell a Mooninite from a bomb
so I think the score’s kind of even.
Every time I tried to go back
for Thanksgiving-Christmas-Spring Break, it rained.
Eventually I stopped believing in coincidence,
convinced that Boston, you didn’t want me to leave,
pouring deep seas because somehow or another
you knew I never knew how to swim.
You cried like a big brother watching
his sibling going off to camp for the summer.
I spent the first night of 2007
at the Hynes Convention Center
slamming poetry with friends
I wouldn’t hesitate to call my 2nd family.
Students and faculty let me spit game
at MLK, Camp Heartland, Hug Don’t Hate.
They gave me a part of the stage
and my gift back is a place in my heart.
Psych 101 taught me the only kind of laughter that matters
is when you’re standing in front of a mirror.
The Late Nite Cafe was my first and last
fast food job, punching out past midnight
and smelling of frozen blueberries
and deep fryer fat, ready to collapse
on my stack of textbooks.
Boston, you almost cured me of being an insomniac,
which is a lot coming from a city that doesn’t sleep.
The trains stop running
so I run to the Esplanade
to dip my hand in the river.
I’ve come a long way from the Hudson to the Charles
and sometimes begin to wonder
what I would do if I didn’t live close
to a body of water that connects us all
and how life is meaningless without the connections
between one another. Take care of each other.
Peace.

sometimes when I’m crossing the boulevard
and the cars are sitting behind the red light like dogs
I think if I just stopped
it wouldn’t be so bad facing this firing squad