The first day that Mercury went retrograde, I saw the Sun Ra Arkestra. Space is the place, but I almost didn’t go. It was a Saturday. I had spent the whole week twisting my love and heartbreak into poetry. They are really all the same thing. You always always always gotta break.

My grandma cut her biscuits with a sharp-edge tin can. It had wavy walls like a washboard so it was easy to hold, even for my hands when they were very small, when I was very small. I lived for the moment she handed that can to me. “Be careful,” she’d say, “it’s sharp.” “I know,” I’d say. I already knew how things that seemed easy to hold could cut you.I had to kneel on a chair to get the right angle.