eagle-eyed with barbed wire pulling at your seams / the
feeling of her first body trembling beneath your hungry
tongue / bruises mom made you hide / with turtlenecks
in summer heat / calling out for the moon / and Mercury bristling /
with volcanic teeth /
learning to hide / yourself in
plain sight / the weight in your ribs when she says I want /
to be your wife / laying breast to breast
in the back of her car / no longer living anyone else’s
lie / constellations burn / collapse / and you become the sun
you become / fire and brimstone / raining / from blackened sky
//
dezireé a. brown is a black queer woman poet, scholar, and self-proclaimed social justice warrior, born and raised in Flint, MI. They are currently an MFA candidate at Northern Michigan University, and often claim to have been born with a poem written across their chest. A Poetry and Non-Fiction Editor for Heavy Feather Review, their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Kweli, BOAAT, Anomaly, Cartridge Lit, RHINO, and the anthology Best “New” African Poets 2015, among others. They tweet at @deziree_a_brown.