Dedication

To my Soul: I prolly could made your middle name Poetry. I was performing poems about race when I found out you existed, was writing this poetry book during your cocooning. And your mother's refusal of even an IV, wanting to feel every ache, a privilege only given to the yang of humanity. And if yin had any sense, it would envy. That's poetry. Her love for her Incan ancestral instincts, her craving to share in the pain of her foremothers in your delivery. That's Poetry. It's good to know that one day you too will wield that type of power. You peeked the tip of your head out of your past. The safety of your personal Mother Earth. My wife. She was no longer one pregnant woman. You were two people. That's Alma, that's Soul. Such a simple idea. But the image sealed it for me. You're two people. Not one person with a ball of tissue festering inside. You are not an inconvenience. You are my maturity. You are my time. You make me in no hurry. There are not enough feels or fears. You are my Egypt, my evidence that we were once superior and royal and flawed and helpless. And will crack the pavement of time for all. Our posterity to envy. You are why.

To my Moon: You were a packaged deal. What learning to love means. You are the picture of what God does for outsiders. We share no DNA but identical passion for yo' Mamma. You are not an inconvenience. You are not a stepdaughter. You are my humility. You are, in an ironic twist, my mirror. My lessons. You two were tattooed on my fingertips, by archangels with ink extracted from lilac on Jupiter. See, you ain't know Jupiter has beautiful gardens on it. But God shrouded it with poisonous clouds because the dirty hands of man's 10 year plans and life goals would soil its beauty. You can't touch the ink of the future. Its pedals are too much for you. Your potential is too much for me. These words are beneath you. My hopes for you are beneath you. My poems are beneath you. You are my play on words. My apprehension. My second guess. My insecurity. My pyramid. My Mayan temple. My reminder that pre-Columbian us was amazing, yet post is no different. You two. My Sol. My soul. My moon. My Luna. My daughters. This is yours.