Kites- a poem by Jaime King

I Missy Miss

Hover

Hover around the bones and flakes of skin 

that carry my friends and their families 

Their families that are cracked, cracked 

like the heirlooms that are passed down 

Down, down baby, O Street in the Range 

Rover 

I digress 

It is spring by the water where the 

lineage lay catching rays and some - maybe 

one in particular, hides under the 

umbrella 

for the powerful need not to be browned 

from that circular orb we see in our 

periphery 

Not some, just one, may be more powerful 

shines so bright, too bright 

Come on - the other people have feelings 

too 

When she walks into the room she comes in 

sideways, don’t look forward 

head on, don’t look to your siblings, your 

cousins and their blood 

It carries the hopes, the hangings, the 

loss, the joy, the prayers of animals, to 

animals, to spirits unheard of, it carries 

the sounds of your father dropping the 

bomb Christmas morning the HE yes HE is 

having an emotional affair. 

An emotional affair with a toaster and a 

plastic doll, shot up and blown up and 

pricked to look like a cat or a tiger or 

some other “pretty shit.” 

The forks dropped, I believe there was 

some wine spit, there were some tear ducks 

truculent and ready to pull out ninja 

stars and start dropping 

Wet like the sea, like the seven of us 

under one room 

This family in full bloom and a heart, 

heartache going 

BOOM 

BOOM 

BOOM 

The elephant in the kitchen going 

MOVE 

MOVE 

MOVE 

and won’t you just SEE me??? 

I love watching the sucklings of this 

little daughter curl next to her mother 

then the mother curled up next to me 

She too is full of pink pricks and 

malleable plastic and blood that has been 

spun down, extracted and god knows what 

they did 

Under one room, I smell the scent of what 

God and Love and to be of service really 

means 

It bears a shifting weight on my shoulders 

that don’t belong kissing my ears 

But its all that sitting there and sitting 

there for years 

In our lineage, our leaves call the 

chants, the times that our people died 

and the sand beneath our toes reminds us 

of how little they felt, 

and now, how little and irritated we felt 

Now just the hidden letters they tuck in 

between the cells, the matter, what is the 

matter?  

2.

You ask me what is the matter? 

Well, my sister done reached far across 

the country and she brought with her the 

clan that may or may not be her “best 

friends” 

But they are mine, I tell you, and the 

dust and flakes of skin from their flesh 

are carried under my fingernails 

Under their tips and the sounds of coffee 

and tradition all rolled into one 

Basking in the sunlight, flying kites 

under the press of the shade, under the 

camouflage of SPF 1000 

Some babies got too much Light… 

So that sphere in our periphery, 

that thing that holds its burning shape 

above our skulls from the first breath of 

every one of our lives could rest easy 

Just this once, rest easy dear Sun, so 

this little one can play easy under the 

weight and shape of her anatomy.