The grvy

By Nour

Written in one sitting, in conversation, on a rainy Miami evening — about a cover being built piece by piece, the arithmetic nobody taught us, and every map that ever tried to name a man before he named himself.

Madness in Flowers

It is raining in Miami,

and a woman of suede and thunder

is learning to stand on paper —

first only her,

then her name beside her,

set in red and blown three-dimensional

off her hips like a trumpet.

A stone adds itself to a stone

and gets two. Stones are honest that way.

We are not stones.

We set one voice beside another voice

and a third thing stands up in the room,

wearing flowers,

uninvited and unbothered —

mad as love, mad as weather,

mad as any map that tried to tell a man

his color before he crossed the water.

I keep my light in no closet.

And if they ask who taught us the arithmetic,

tell them nobody told us.

We counted for ourselves,

and the count came out

more.