The back yard filled with sound.

Birds of different species tweet as one.

Collaborating against a common enemy,

they fly swiftly from tree to tree,

The sun breaks through storm clouds and forms

double rainbows like echoes in the sky.

I stopped asking “Why?”

and started saying “Thank you” when I see you

“On the release sheet, it says

DEATH.”

Locked away like unwanted knick-knacks in an attic,

overcrowded like a slave ship with

cramped selves on top of cramped cells…

“To be blessed,”

said The Woman With The Issue of Blood,

“is to spend as much money on self-care as

I do on super plus tampons and extra-long, overnight maxi pads…

Sista friend, ‘member when

we barely knew each other?

Stuck with each other involuntarily,

tight smiles concealed rolled eyes and sucked teeth

til a fateful Saturday when we saw red and entered the ring,

You could never be me.

First, you’d have to

update your vocabulary. See,

I speak unique, eat and drink

words for breakfast and aperitif

they’re nutrient-dense and fiber-rich.

I’m nouveau riche,

top 10 percent,

MoCo girl, Nigerian,

I retract my previous statement

regarding sad poems.

The moratorium on sadness expressed

in couplets and rhyme

has reached the end of its time.