CHEATING PT III: EULOGY

 Gang leaders take note. Punishment is not a curse, but a strange blessing. The true curse is apathy & there is nothing if not the extreme. A set of snow white wings, a bleeding sparrow.

 Are there any warriors here tonight? Are you taking back the street? Do the streets need to be taken? … What of the earth? Is it right to be in nature? Is it right to be of nature? Our saint was heaven sent with a halo bent.

 The best person I have ever known, she is just one of a few children but a fierce light of her own entire. The love she held in her heart could raise a poor girl in the projects. This is what singers sang about when they referred to the ghetto. A spirit named “L-U-V.”

 Her height belied her tall capacity to give, a saint like no other but not unlike every other saint. She could transform an angel food cake into an avocado, frost to fruit, a bird into a stone.

 Have you ever really touched a satin cloth? Have you ever really felt a wedding gown? Does the cloak of a nun inspire thee? Would you blow into the ear of your oppressors? Our saint. Our saint.

 Imagine the air turned to glass. Imagine a halo of burrs. A crown of doves. The leaves of a pine. She taught me how to put on makeup. She taught me how to wear clothes so that I’ll always look my best: “A bow tie, a cummerbund, a single lace sock.”

 Who here helped at the funeral? Who held our saint’s hand? Were you there when they bit the umbilical cord? Did you say something sweet to your neighbor? Raise your hands or don’t; there is apathy, there is damnation, there is enticement, there is a hot cross bun.

 We sat in the basement eating bread. When I did not want starch, she showed me her bruise. “How shallow of me,” I thought. And then I tasted the bread.