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
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.