god’s definitely here. in all these tired-out brown women
looking through racks and racks of what’s not lying on the floor:
god comes through for us,
makes us fly and impossibly beautiful

god is the lean finger
that leads us to the red high-heeled
Steve Maddens, the cherry-red stiletto
the Native Tongues hoodie
for $14.99

god is in the woman at the checkout
raising two grandbabies on this job and the DMV, saying

you look real cute! I remember when I used to dress like that
but since I’m the minister of my church I have to tell you
jesus told ladies they need to cover up more

as she pulls the security tag off my slutty Steve Madden heels

first published in Love Cake, TSAR/ Mawenzi House 2011

 

 

 

Curator's Notes: Meg Day

Have you ever tried to train your gaze along the imprecise pointing of someone’s finger toward where—in the vast, nearly indefinite night sky—a constellation is supposedly waiting intact for you to find it? So much of the time, my experience as a reader mimics that of the untrained stargazer trying my best to see what it is I’m supposed to see. Not so with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha: there is no front, no vague gesture, no promise that something’s there & I’m just not looking hard enough. There is no mistaking: half prayer, half prophecy, this poem glows like it just descended from some kind of futurity I didn’t know was waiting for me. I can see it clearly, can pull it close & closer, & can feel Piepzna-Samarasinha—like gravity itself—holding me to the earth for a beat longer than most poems dare, just so I get a real good look. If poetry is a site of generosity, Piepzna-Samarasinha has been specific in the giving: pay attention, have reverence, give again.