whales do not speak their own English

              I didn’t believe when you told me

 

how the earth spun with a container 

        of chest rub   we grew in the floors pinned by

The bricks of your south neighbor’s wall 

   your finger was always old looking to me

 

     like cassava  soon as you planted them into my  sunchoke palm

      I didn’t believe  those were your huge long wisdom teeth covering my lines       

 

until your backyard told me 

              something about Black lesbians bearing grape vines and cherries on Gladstone 

I couldn’t imagine 

 

                                             fruit growing up trees

 

The first time I saw anything like  a baby robin was there   too

    When I was milked into this world

 

They screamed   that’s not what a baby looks like  I looked 

            into my newborn mother’s eyes 

     her mother addressed me as  her mother

 

     and not shucked same as any