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but some men call out the rapists
by Destiny O. Birdsong

it’s true
                               you’re no swan
 
and neither
                               is this Leda
 
her dark throat
                               gouged
 
the clot
                 of lifeblood
 
almost invisible
                               against her skin
 
 
you’re a peacock
 
                               pleading
 
for his
                 nesting hen
 
(and doesn’t
                 every woman
 
need to hear
                               at least once
 
the sound
                               of her own keening?)
 
 
 
you nurse
                 your cracked
 
beak
                 most beautifully
 
technicolor
                 tears
 
fanning your back
 
                                                  as you dip
into
                 the goosedown
 
crowning
                               her thighs
 
you’re
                 healing her
 
 
 
like a cuckoo
                               you build
 
your nest
                 atop
           
the webbed burn
                               on her sternum
 
you nestle
                 your eggs
 
in the blooming
                               bruise of her telling     
 
 
 
perhaps
                 you’re most like
 
a vulture:
                               usually silent
 
until
                 you discover
 
a curdle
                 ​of maggots
 
paring
                               her perineum
 
how you
                 ​mourn
 
what you
                               have called
 
behind
                               her back
 
a carcass
 
that only
                 ​​hours
 
earlier
                 ​might have been
 
a feast
 
 
 
for you
 
 
 
                 ​alone 

Destiny O. Birdsong is a poet and essayist whose poems have either appeared or are forthcoming in African American Review, Indiana Review, Bettering American Poetry Volume II, The BreakBeat Poets Presents: Black Girl Magic, Split This Rock's Poem of the Week, and elsewhere. Her critical work recently appeared in African American Review and The Cambridge Companion to Transnational American Literature. Destiny is a recipient of the Academy of American Poets Prize, has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Callaloo, and Jack Jones Literary Arts, and residencies from The Ragdale Foundation and The MacDowell Colony. Read more of her work at www.destinybirdsong.com.

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December 2017
ISSN 2157-8079
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