from handfuls to coasts, islands to continents

our skin
the color of sand
adapts,
shifts, sings sunlight, spring & summer
lingers in autumn
impressed hues shaded by obsidians

i am
ochres, siennas, oxides, burnt umbers,
purples & deep emeralds where blood rivers run
speckles & scarred flesh,
flecked with memories,
and deep lines in the palms of both hands since I was seven

and I imagine what it could be like
to deconstruct the concrete
we inherited - what we were born into,
what was man-made –
so the earth can breath

…not stopping at cracks, or fractals, or rubble,
but pulverizing to dust & grit,
to be carried by wind, by water
or to turn
beneath our weight or by earthquakes,
liberating minerals
from cement
to dance with soil.

on these distant lands
will concrete remember
what it is to be sand?
to be pebbles or deep ocean beds
after medians, barriers, walls,
suffocated stretches of
parking lots, foundations of racist statues, capitol buildings, or skyscrapers stroking egos
sands stolen from the opposite side of the ocean
- the edges of our motherlands -

like the eucalyptus, the palms, and the black & brown peoples brought here.