the summer after DMX died every rainfall
felt like a benediction
by Anthony Thomas Lombardi
the way i’m loved in a grocery store is as good as any other.
we move at a pallbearer’s pace, soak up whatever salves
the streets don’t reap, collect leaking welts like metaphors.
i don’t blame the mosquitoes. i siphon off all my lifelines,
weep like i drank all the wine. when God visits, He paints the town
a darker thirst, the wells so empty they sigh. we tell stories
about the days before you knew me biblically. the disciples
washed my feet. you spoke in tongues & i refused to believe
you ever cut loose a string of syllables i wouldn’t lap up
like the moon’s reflection. in a painting, i point out the blunders
of the galaxy. most stars don’t explode. they have their moment
then they die: the butterfly once feared now perched
on your finger. the pearl one waxwing pitches another.
the twitch that parts your lips when i tell you something true.
we move at a pallbearer’s pace, soak up whatever salves
the streets don’t reap, collect leaking welts like metaphors.
i don’t blame the mosquitoes. i siphon off all my lifelines,
weep like i drank all the wine. when God visits, He paints the town
a darker thirst, the wells so empty they sigh. we tell stories
about the days before you knew me biblically. the disciples
washed my feet. you spoke in tongues & i refused to believe
you ever cut loose a string of syllables i wouldn’t lap up
like the moon’s reflection. in a painting, i point out the blunders
of the galaxy. most stars don’t explode. they have their moment
then they die: the butterfly once feared now perched
on your finger. the pearl one waxwing pitches another.
the twitch that parts your lips when i tell you something true.
Anthony Thomas Lombardi is a Pushcart-nominated poet, organizer, activist, and educator. He is the founder, host, and curator for Word is Bond, a community-centered reading series that raises funds for transnational relief efforts and mutual aid organizations, and currently serves as assistant poetry editor for Sundog Lit. His work has appeared or will soon in Guernica, Gulf Coast, The Journal, Colorado Review, North American Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn with his cat, Dilla.