a collection of mitochondrial histories
i have named all of the clone energies inside me
grandfathered in
i call them joshua-the-same
in their collisions, sparks occur
i am created between the seconds
to throb away the hours
in memory of men who came before me
joshua
my gifted skin, a tapestry of ancestry
he is surrounded in the kitchen
an audience of hungry eyes
apron around waist
baking, a southern inferno
wrist broken at the hand
and hair laid straight by his wife
he cooks for the men
who secretly call him Gale
i have only known him as joshua
my body is an echo of his enduring privacies
we are joined at the nucleus and burn
all that we cook is desire
all that we cook is black and overdone
the old man with the wife and kids
prefers to call them nothing
but forgotten, we are remembered
in the rising sun
he is the skin of time
a shroud of memory in the low-down
just like one day, me
between the legs of a boy
i remember him
while the man on the radio chants
“all day i dream about sex”
