Today's poem is by Shayla Lawson

Thinkin Bout You
        from I Think I'm Ready To See Frank Ocean

Never let an ocean love you. He'll take
an eternity to do so. Like when Moses

asked of the-one-true-God, "Who
should I say comes for the sons

of Israel?" & God said, "Tell them
—I SHALL PROVE TO BE

WHAT I SHALL PROVE
TO BE," which is better than I-Am

-What-I-Am because I could say, "Prove it"
for, I am what I am as well. I wonder

if the ocean will get any older the way
I wonder about humanity. Would it

feel slick as cool new paint on the fender
of a wave headed off to join the tide? A tornado

lifting its brow from under a ball cap
scurrying around the shag rug, pushing

bed linens to wall posters, kicking away
shoes. No (it usually doesn't rain

it torrents). I wonder when Frank sees
the ocean if he feels naked as it is & becomes

a bit ashamed. When the ocean sees the same
does it too curl its large toe under the lining

of a tube sock & shy away from reflection?
Does it think about the mess it made

—songs floating on the bed of a one
room studio apartment? O Christopher

O Francis-I-Have-Not felt
so tuned to the earth it spirals

to the tilt of a bass clef
to the sun, since singing backup

for Al Green through the air ducts
of a Piccadilly Circus vintage shop.

How else do you mend a broken heart?
Eyeliner, sequin gowns, lapis lazuli.

How does the rain stop? (It doesn't.)
Even my mother in her arid

rock / gods—feathered hats, Sly
Stone, & Jagger—beat the desert-

dry July of Southern California
asking, 'What makes the world

go round' of Al-Green-as-always.
My eyes don't shed tears

but boy they bawl / just thinkin bout
it. None of us know what makes

the world go round anymore
than we know if love is

the deflated beach/-ball we keep
blowing up & putting our ear against

just to hear The Ocean inside:
every crush, a cymbal crash

every tear heavy as the sea Moses held back
with a staff. He sees his face in the eye of

a whale & isn't scared. Never
let an ocean love you. He will only take forever.

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Copyright © 2023 Shayla Lawson All rights reserved
from Lords of Misrule editors: Rebecca Lauren & Henry Israeli
Saturnalia Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission