The Body Knows (Where It Comes From)

6:45am



8:13am            

11:15am 




5:30pm  



5:55pm 



7:20pm  

dream is still circling. got me hanging upside down, wings straining
to cover the rawest parts. sun come snarling in, stretching out my
ankles, wrists. i am long. a winding slave trail shuffling to the cliff.

his legs wide open sucking in the artificial light of the e train. i am left a tiny
patch of seat. my knees nail themselves together. bloodied, whispering.

this meeting is a pit of razor voices, a mud sling of big words and egos. they
do not see me. i open my mouth. i close it. i open my mouth. someone says 
the thing i was going to say. i open my mouth. a raven flies in and clips
my tongue.

when i walk, they ask to touch my hair. i bare my teeth and run. when i run
my hair jingles: collision of hooked moons, spines, dog chains and
spoons.    

in front of the grocery there is a man with holes gnawing at his shoes. bags                         and bags, cradled in a cart. man says house of stone, breast of aching clay.
says you don't remember?

i lie cold in the dry bathtub. i am still afraid of drowning.

by Desiree Bailey

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Desiree Bailey hails from Trinidad & Tobago and Queens, NY. She has received fellowships from Princeton in Africa, The Norman Mailer Center and Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop and is a recipient of the Poets & Writers 2013 Amy Award. She is currently the fiction editor at Kinfolks Quarterly and an MFA Fiction candidate at Brown University.