For Grace, For Grave
by Jasmine Reid

​​I paint my nails in Blue Heaven’s soft colors
                        the way a beast might saw its claws
                        ​to dust the doorstep of spring.
                        shed teeth, shorn beak laid down
                        like an old blade begging
                        for flowers, instead.
 
                        call it burial
                        if it means I am becoming soil.
 
                        if I am more killable this way,
                        more human, too.
 
                        this prey in cropped cloth.
                        this prey with no sharp.
 
                        this way to the cat call.
                        this way to the plucking.
                        thick paws around the birdneck
                        squeeze, squawk, squeeze.
                        this way to the meat.
                        ​this way to the beasts who do not ask
                        ​permission or forgiveness.
 
                        I begged forgiveness in my beakless way:
                        lain out in a bed of snow
                        ​spread eagle wide as surrender.

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​Jasmine Reid is a twice trans poet-child of flowers. A 2018 Poets House Fellow and MFA candidate at Cornell University, her work has been published or is forthcoming in Muzzle Magazine, Yemassee Journal, WUSGOOD?, and WATER. Also a finalist for the 2018 Sonia Sanchez-Langston Hughes Poetry Prize, Jasmine was born and raised in Baltimore, MD, and is currently based in Brooklyn, NY. Follow her at reidjasmine.com

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In Which Our Wants Are Worlds by Jasmine Reid
​June 2018

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