The Ghost Of Marvin Gaye Puts A Seashell To His Ear And Hears A Moan From The Last Woman He Loved

Funny how they ain’t teach us
how to unwrite a song once it pulls

the twilight down and makes a mess
of the tangled limbs. My skin, a different kind

of blue than the one which gave birth
to my American lineage. My skin, under

the spotlight of any stage, is what made
me less hunter and more prey. I understand

the language of wetness. The way sound
searches for a mother—as we all do once

we are coughed into the ache of a dry
and loveless interior. What some called hallucination

I called a sunrise. A morning with another
set of legs to free myself from. And they ain’t

teach that either. That was all me. All of that shit
people say feels like drowning and none of it actually

does.