debtsong

In the warm

season my debt

sang to me from

under the porch swing

under the stove

under the tv

inside the doors

my debt

it got

into the radio waves

when I looked

in the mirror

it was me and

it was the mirror

it interrupted

all the calls

from the ancestors

one day,

the angel came down from the mantelpiece to take me to the desert where my debt lived and we drove for forty-

five hours in the ford f-150 without any air conditioning. At a split in the road the angel ran out of gas and we

pulled over to pray. The angel showed me how to kneel properly and beg god to send us gas. I asked him why he

needed to pray wasn’t he an angel and couldn't he just fly anyways, and the angel said that we were all beggars

to god, so we knelt in the dust in the desert seventeen hours from the home of my debt. In the end we caught a

ride to Tecopa and back. When we made it to my debt’s house the shades were drawn and the windows were

locked and my debt wouldn’t come to the door and I turned to the angel to ask him to please tell me what to do

but he was weeping and it started to rain and it rained and rained until we floated away in the F-150.

my debt

sang to me

from

under the bed

and when I

had fabulous

dreams

when I drank

when I drove

to the coast

I knew who

I belonged to

I knew who

dragged the sun

out of the sky

who raised

the moon

who drafted

my nights

my days

my debt told the time

and lived in the shape of things