my father and i build a family tree
he names dead people
as far back as two hundred years
he or she would have remembered
more, he says
it is not morbid his saying
this i want to get it
all, I say
in case you are hit by a car tomorrow
this is morbid
i like the way it feels
to see the blood
the tiny red bugs
crossing over
i smear
neither white nor black
just alive a moment ago
his eyes a little wet
allergy in the body
who gave this away before before
is it Caribbean
to be intolerant
is it indigenous to be intolerant
human to be of flowers and dust
sent into the air
this is either very glorious
or too ceremonial
i have never asked this
many closed-ended questions
i hope it doesn’t feel punitive
to know without sounding
so imperious i am sorry
something has opened
into more and i am here
thinking of all the parts of me
that died at the bottom of a long night
working and if not working
for the government making it work
in one room
the beginnings of socialism
or capitalism
how well can we know ourselves
in different systems of being
question answer parenthetical
he comes upon a bit of memory
i put it beside the men and women
this is how i will place them
and remember them
if there is a blank
it will go on forever
far enough into the ghosts
all the fucking
everyone did is in
our hair
the air about us
how political it is
to be here
in the backyard in Queens
spread out like leaves
like buccaneers
pilferers in the rainforest
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Vanessa Jimenez Gabb was raised and lives in Brooklyn, NY. She is the author of the chapbook Weekend Poems (dancing girl press) and is the co-founder of Five Quarterly. More stuff: missgabb.tumblr.com
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