Life is liquid

dribbling
like the milk of my great-grandmother did
when an Aryan man yanked her nipple
from the mouth of her squirming daughter

Mindlessly, it undulates like the sea
beneath inner tubes filled with boys
evading the soulless
to find solace
and soles
for their shoes

Life is liquid

shining sheens of sweat
on the foreheads of lovers once estranged
by mortar and prejudice
finally enveloped in velvet
flesh
and linen

It is the tears bleaching rivers on cheeks
of cinnamon women with lost sons
of wives with wedding ring wounds
of dewy-eyed girls with doom growing in their bellies

Life is liquid

glimmering holy water
put in place by some heavenly father
and broiling
like blood
dripping
down the throat
of a church-born church-bred youth
biting their tongue

It congeals the hair of a papaya-seed baby
oozed onto the Earth
from her mother’s tired wet thighs
and eyes
that know the future of a succulent girl
and the thirst of men like her father
and the quench of men
like her father

Life is liquid

dense
drooling
juice
of teeth-torn mango
on plump dry lips
that haven’t kissed food in days

It’s thick
and temporary
like oil
on dark liberated hair
synthesizing prose and poetry
a reflection of the sun in limbo
between nectar
and ice

Life is liquid

yet we rarely swish it around in a glass
to watch prisms and purples
splash against crystal curvature
and to let it ferment in a puddle on our tongues