Poetry from NER 42.3 (2021)
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no one said hawk
we just looked at the sky
in the middle of a conversation

no one said when the melons were ripe
they were thumped and listened to 
for a note we liked

a note like cane

no one had to tell the birds to eat
the seeds 
we spit on the ground 

no one had to tell the devil to make his rounds
in his many forms
with his many things 

your mama my mama/my mama your mama 
we never had to say it so until now 
because you feel more than far away
you feel gone 

we’d all wake up one morning
and all the Jacaranda trees were blooming
and no one needed to say a thing

& we were having a good time
& we were so alive we lifted off the ground a bit
no one needed to call it flying

& no one told us to come down
we could do this for long time   love 
like this   beside our grandmama’s 

watching Bob Ross make birds 
& bushes in her hushed living room 
every summer a craft lesson
no one told us was happening 

no one told me to write this down

NOTE: “Don’t Say Love Just Signal” is a line borrowed from the poet Al Young.