I
Star-Crossed
Amongst Children
Variants of the Same Story, II
Girl Remembers a Place Even Columbus Cannot Miss
Bonnaroo, 2012
Star-Crossed Caveat
Reminisce
Comfort
Yearn
Star-Crossed East to West
My Mother’s Story Interpreted from a Photograph
of Her and Her Parents Smiling, 1984
In Solidarity with Fate

II
Post-Colonial Triumph
Like Crystal
Serenaded By a Prince or Symbol
Fingerprints
Pulled Pork
American Archipelago
Black Beans
Response/Ability
Dream Dialogue Where My Mother’s Mother
Talks to Her Husband
Bravata
When a White Boy Says He Prefers
Fear Response to Reflection
Where It May
Like Pontius Pilate Washing His Hands
Memory of Star-Crossed Leaving Fingerprints
The Inventor of Peanut Butter
Star-Crossed Without the Sugar
A Haunting
A Poem for a Daughter, for a Son

III
A Platter
What Cannot Be Touched
As If Still
For Bodies to Whom I Owe My Life
Bust Yoke
Dream Dialogue Where I Narrate the Rape
of Great-Great Oma, 1896
Variants of the Same Story, I
Trying Hard to Find the Answer
Where Are You, Jessica Dash?
What the Star-Crossed Notice
Miscegenation
They Used to Chop Off the Penis
A Neighbor Tells What Happened to My Father’s
Aunt in Chillicothe, 1983
Blessing the Breakup
Genealogy of Wounds
The Guts That Come with Love
And Transmuted
When I Think About Malcolm X

IV
Initiation
First Run
When I Remember the Same Old
The Blacker
Dream Dialogue Where I Talk to My Father
Like I’m Honest
Intersectional Guillotine
When You Hear Love Talkin
Thought Experiment from the Vine
A Writer Reads at the Library Downtown
Cento Across the Mutual Landscape
Hood
I Have a Photo of My Mother as a Child
Clintonville After We Move In
Food That Was Cheap

V
Star-Crossed Daughter at 23 Months

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS