Chukwu Zi Anyi Uzo Gi (God Show Us Your Way)

we are lost rivers — we

cough maggots into air. locusts

devour

our yams feast on our screams.

where bullets fell our children

flowers bloom.

Chukwu, zi anyi uzo gi

why do gods scramble air ’til it’s fire

burning flesh

& call this act blessed?

even the sun

has fallen

silent

Chukwu, o, zi anyi uzo gi

they goaded us to this

wilderness sent us fire

without flood laid waste our grit

we till this earth & wade blood-waters

’til empty bellies burst

Biko, zi anyi uzo gi

call us out from this razored abyss

between death & exile

where dogs defame

our rotting limbs

& wait to suck our marrow.

Chineke anyi, Chukwu anyi, biko

zi anyi uzo gi —

who will tend our gardens when we are gone?

from Tithing, for Colored Girls

I tithe my body into pieces, my fattest flesh to God.

when lightning strikes I

become the shadow in someone else’s dream

round, dark, flat nothing without light

tomorrow grass drowned in sky-sweat

dirt wiped from un-anointed skin

between my bones secrets of the calabash

uncoded, siphoned from its corded roots

the gods no longer cut white ash

where I lay, rather pray

demons into the wind hurricane my refuge

demand for an offering of sand from my spit

dirty water I am limb-branch

made of wood & oil once hanging

from the hairless thick between mama’s

thighs I now give birth to what

has no kink, no blood, deterged

from future longing

Come to where God divides by zero

Where they have colonized the animals

Where even the ant must beg for freedom

Regard the bunnies splayed & charred

Gather their remains

Sink them in the river

Know that all that’s left of earth is climax

the body is a strange habit. cries & laughs

from the same dark space where fingers bend. exists

in a rough way in a garden in an amusement park in a room

that dizzies when lightening strikes too bright for sleeping

whispers when is the last time you looked at it here’s a mirror

just a peek mind the haint not too much just a hint just

a taste one more time let’s play never have I ever

wished to be something other than rain