Windows down
and the smell of salt
Wind battered skin
hardened by time and place
No walls
much like her heart
Dusty floors and rattling snakes,
hiding in corners
Spiders calling her bedsheets, 
‘Friend’

Brokebacked badass
Burdened by little and aware of it all
Some learned ways
Ain’t afraid to cut you to pieces
The Bronx called her body home
But words,
Or her way with them, I mean
were the core of her composition

She was billowy smokestacks of gray
Allusions to sandy deserts at night that stretched on so far and wide
that you didn’t know where the earth ended and she began

Lit candles
And stories of tough women
Raising communities
Strong
Tightknit
And teaching young boys that within all that is feminine
Lies
Power.

Now, unturned box turtles await her rescue
And she resides within words much like these
That carry her spirit

Did you know her?
No. 
But I swear to the Goddesses above, 
I wish I did.