Jade Pina - Lakeview

INVOCATION

(After Aracelis Girmay’s “Invocation”)

Come displaced Palestinian Arab sweeping sins across the borough
Come mothers who were common ground, but not enough to bridge the gap
Come incubus who leaves you asphyxiated and dilated
Humming short breaths in prosodies
Come biromantic with catatonic tongue that lashes apathetically, come

And box-cutter accompanied by duct tape
Stay silent, come as you are
Bleeding mascara, hog-tied to a bar sink
Be that as it may, come
Mutilated Barbies
Come Saturday night skinny dippers
“I love you, now taste the skin above my bones.”
And suckle, leaf, twigs and branch
Come five generations of plantation soil

Kizzy
Fiddler

Rise roots

The Roots, A Tribe Called Quest, WuTang
Come intangible peace, love, and soul and
A kick down a thirteen step stairwell
Do not worry, rock bottom welcomes you in a flood of Irish Neat
Come blind eyes
And Mister Sandman, come, bring me a nightmare
That doesn’t follow the classically conditioned faith of a fist

Come leaden paralysis
Come soporific drug cocktails

Neruda
Belfast Pagans
Faye Dunaway
Wire hangers on stove eyes after honeymoon

Come: A euphemism
Cat calls
White walls
White Stripes
Candy stripers

       Come iambic pentameters
       And eight syllable sonnets

Invictus
Invocation
Intonation

Come anaphora:

How many times can you clean the cataclysm of a night crawler’s

Cold, calloused hand?

How many times did you self-diagnose as a paraplegic?

How many times were your vocal chords just duds locked in your throat?

How many times did you comply before you could defy?