Raise
       

I need a safe house everywhere I go.

The invasions are every day.

I have to spend more time than I have, thinking about asking
for more.

If and when, might and exactly how much, having everything
before me, my life.

In the summer, I don't drive much, I don't use the city's roads or
tunnels or bridges. I can work another job, for another employer.

The fall, the winter, the spring, the little car my silver pod.
I become more proprietary. This is mine and this is yours.

All year, the day, inherently overtime. After a certain point,
I produce more than I am given.

All year, I am a thing.
All year, I am salt.

I am not afraid to talk about money. Liberating to hear you say
this is nothing strange to me. I understand the beauty of our labor.

Liberating to hear my sister say she is looking into different
modes of representation.

Liberating to hear my father and mother say this is what it
means to be on an exalted mission. This is what it means to know
yourself.

There is nothing unsafe left to talk about.

This grand and that grand are what I am. But I had no say in that.

And there is not enough more they'd be willing to give before
this would become another this altogether.

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Copyright © 2017 Vanessa Jimenez Gabb All rights reserved
from Images for Radical Politics
Rescue Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission