Stacking Cistern My Bones on Top of Your Bones on Top of Your Bones
Not an optimist. I lie awake at night and say the name
of everyone on the block and for three blocks over
and then the names of the people I don’t know. I call
them by their house number, by their street address.
I wish they not be sick. I wish they not get shot. I wish.
It calms me but also is it selfish? Do I do it to keep
myself alive? I have a theory that if I let the light
out into the world then we’ll all get to stay alive. Want
to stay alive. I think of everything I know about all
the people on my block. I list Ms. Edna and her children.
I say the names of everyone at the church and then
the people I don’t know. I want everyone to have money.
I want everyone to have a house and food and be
believed in and be told they’re believed in. I want
to know these things can happen so I don’t want to die.
Or so I can feel the hollow part of me filling with all
of us getting to be filled up. There’s no part of me that’s
a saint. I’m not saying this to get some extra credit.
I’m saying I wonder if you do it too? My bones on top
of your bones on top of your bones. Or your bones
on top of mine. All of us awake at 3 am wishing the best
for people like filling up an endless cistern with light
and understanding. All the way down to the center of
the earth and up to where the solitary planes fly past.
Source: Poetry (October 2025)