I Do Have a Seam

BY JAMAAL MAY

and you see it, there
                                                                   in the center of my chest, a string
to pull, a chrome zipper,
                                                                   interlocking down my sternum,
belly to inner thigh, or
                                                                   there is only a hole, barely
large enough for a woman’s
                                                                   two thumbs. Come,
press, pull hands apart until
                                                                   my halves, billow open, and
muscle, sinew and organ are
                                                                   right there, pulsing
in your bed room. Woman,    here
                                                                   within reach, woman
with plump thumbs,
                                                                   with slender fingers—  
woman I’d fuck up for—  
                                                                   hello, you
careful seamstress, you
                                                                   needle in my sternum—  
stitch my selvage as it frays,
                                                                   you know how ragged I’ve been,
but do you know what
                                                                   I’ve always wanted
to be? Thread spooled into
                                                                   the sewing machine of your hands.

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JAMAAL MAY is a Cave Canem Fellow, Callaloo Fellow, and student in Warren Wilson’s MFA for writers. He is the author of a poetry chapbook (The God Engine, Pudding House Press, 2009) and editor of the Organic Weapon Arts Chapbook Series. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Callaloo, Indiana Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Blackbird, and Verse Daily among other magazines and anthologies. May has received two scholarships to the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, an International Publication Prize from Atlanta Review, and he was a finalist for the 2010 Ruth Lilly Fellowship. Recently, he was named the 2011-2012 Stadler Fellow at Bucknell University.

May is a two-time Rustbelt Regional Poetry Slam Champion, two-time Detroit Slam Champion, five time team member, and two-time Individual World Poetry Slam finalist. He has coached three Brave New Voices youth slam teams and teaches poetry classes through the Inside Out Literary Arts Project.