Today I have grief for breakfast— reach my tongueout of my mouth & lickmy own tears. I’m keeping the whole      of me.I call up a friend and we talk about blackwoman paradise— somewhere between starshine& clay. We lay there undead                             rest in the peace of knowingnothing here wants us unalive. Today I want to play Thee Stallionbut play Nina instead   miss Simone hums something about hangingfruit bodies. She harvests me                         kisses the noose burns off my neck. Today           I get my acrylics real long: stiletto neon green— strutout of the nail salon      grinning at admirers     yeah I’m alive& blooming. I fashion my mouthto shoot arrows:No— you can’t have my body         no— I’ll die on my own terms. I still ain’t learned to swim but I’m bikini clad sippingon something fruity& sweet     getting all parts of me wet. I take twolovers to bed— the three of us        tangled into a blackchurch. We worship our god loud & unashamed       she’s a livinggod   we are living       we are alive with mouths agape in want.Today I am a black woman venerated     being loved out loud& I’m loving black women   back to life. Loving black women backto life         today I’m loud in my veneration.I am a black woman in wantmouth agape       yelling we are alive      we are living       god!We are alive& unashamed            worship a tangled worship.We bloom into a green thing          a church of three & all partsof us are wet                             yeah, we’re alive & grinningour mouths into arrow-words:Yes— you can have our bodies            no— we’ll die on our own terms. Today I’m all neck—   a hanging fruit bodyreaching for miss Simone      & Thee Stallion is there too       rapping something about being sweetlike suga    & we’re all undead. We’re three    & naked     covered in starshine& claywe are black    we are black women   we are black women in black womanparadise           alive & whole. Today          we are wholereach our tongues out of our mouths        lick our own tears.