Royalty

The clinking of spoons on bowls. I feel the vibrations of a fancy history on my fingertips. 

I see black butler's dancing from joy that finally this job is a choice.

 I can taste victory in my throat and God slithers into the cracks of my teeth. I’ve ingested his words and let his conviction beat me into dance. 

I step to no tune.

 Make music with my body I don’t hear a damn thing when I taste caramel on the roof tops of my mouth. 

Love is rock and roll in the shower, do you ever go as wild as fireflies in mason jars on stormy nights? 

On those nights, I am a song and I vibrate your bed railings and rock you to sleep when lovers and sex can not make your legs shake like noodles. 

I feel the waves from fancy spoons again. 

This time they’re in my stomach. 

This time they’re making a mother out of me. 

This time God isn’t so sad. 

My feet planted on grass that grew from dirt. This love clings to me like meat and potatoes do to fancy China when it isn’t familiar. 

It is lightning fast. Moves quickest in the mountains of sand my ex-boyfriend’s head is buried in. 

Feel the wind brush your face like fox fur. We are the silver and gold spoons of Africa. 

The queens we call mother and all the times she’d not eaten to feed us, that is royalty shattering into glass and repaired with ice cold water and a bandage. 

Her eyes could always fill the voids and direct the paths of her babies. I find my feet vibrating in sync with mama's every blink.

I’d walk on fire mountains and chase thunderstorms just so I could rescue her thunder bolt and allow her to remain my Zeus. 

I feel the royalty smack my knee caps and push me in the right direction. I clung to the spoons and bowls whenever I was away from home because home is where royalty lived. 

Home is where my secretes live. 

Home is where my momma lives. 

I wrote this poem during my attendance at the 2015 Session 1 of the Iowa Young Writers' Studio. I'm forever grateful to have been chosen to attend such a highly ranked writing camp and the friendships I've made are priceless. All thanks to the University of Iowa.