say it with your whole black mouth: i am innocent.
& if you are not innocent, say this: i am worthy
of forgiveness, of breath after breath.
I’m listening to my father and his brother,
both in their eighties, debate their childhood
from adjoining La-Z-Boy recliners.
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
