Mother & Child

The mothership is mostly
foil with four lights
unevenly blinking up

top like streetlights about
to go out. The mothership
has sixteen exhaust nozzles

underneath & a funky
side door with its own
cascading stair of keyboard

keys underneath ringed
fingers as it huffs & coughs
on the swing down to let

us ride. A chorus of drums,
undeniably on the one.
A chorus of harmonizing

women, gorgeous as comets,
& rows & rows of high-
stepping, glittery stacks

just waiting to step off
the ship. & the ship
is the only way any of us

down-&-out blacks are
going to ease on down
those future & celestial

roads. Remind both
mother & child: the whole
scene pinwheels around

us while we are stuck
in our tin-foiled
& ontological patterns.