.jpg?fit=crop&w=220&h=132&auto=format)
if by garden we mean feedlot then that cow is probably
eating corn.
my nephew once described a just-picked ear
as high yella poppin
a green collar
on stolen land.
don’t all africans love corn
eat the hot grain with a thin membrane
of milk?
the first time he cooked for a girl, his want
was sweet as porridge.
to watch cancer make a mean meal
of him. to watch his eyes
the blackest prisoners, break free
of their sockets.
grief, caught between two flags
cannot tell the country
of the living from the country
of ghosts if by country
we mean the womb’s black & ever-
dying flotilla of sons
nephew, breath AWOL in the house
of legba in the house of ptah in the house
you hoped to be: a self-
contained trinity not nigga
sifted from grits not skin of maize
or boy-husk
but Najee
