Leila Ired

He says no with his head
but he says yes with his heart
...

Three matches lit one by one in the night
The first to see your face in its entirety
...

They say,
between black and white there is gray in choices
perhaps brown or mulatto or mestizo in people
...

Why not
eliminate the outsiders?
and get this country
back the way it used to be?
...

I like being angry.
I like the wolf rasping at my larynx
the way she snarls and snaps at the back of my throat.
I may mute and muzzle her
...

If the world were a crosswalk
two straight white lines
telling us
to live our lives
...

For my sister.

It is not for you
the cursing praise
...

I sit
and see
...

Let's find who to blame:
Ulrica scorned by Cedric,
Pandora and her thrice-cursed box.
...

The mother knits
The son wages war
...

You sank me down
in muds of treachery
like quicksand
clawing at my soul.
...

I am beige
but I would have you paint me colored.
Like the sun, brown my hot skin
mahogany; like the wind, wind red-gold twists
...

I used to wring out sheets with
you
grasping one end tightly and
I the other, and I
...

Hero!
I see you start
to be addressed so boldly.
...

I am
at heart
a saltwater creature
No crystal brooks or placid streams
...

I went to the bird market
And I bought some birds
...

if you have
never
spoken a single word to me
...

I have known
vengefulness
and that sweetness of
words withheld.
...

Like daylight
I fall straight and true
but like twilight I
am caught between evening
...

If I had
but one gospel to leave you,
my dear ones, my daughters, o my beautiful ones,
it would not be the morals of shame sin or religion
...