Peripatetic
           MLK Blvd, Lexington, KY

         —my mama’s womb was a grave
i crawled out of
                  —the world, a constant
          walk, corner to corner
                                        —i lost
my cool innuh can
                          following the bottom
           of this tiny well
                                  i two-toe tote
everywhere
                   —my face is an awkward
slant
        —hear? if rain is company, i live
on umbrella street HAha!
                           —my intellect got knots
—i come up on a discarded cigar,
some reefer
                let the smoke crash, crest
of wave against the cliff
                              of my forehead
—you might take me for
                              a dragon distilled
          down to stumbled gravity &
snuffed out groove
                          —my head be a mop
           of bebop & debris
                                   —been searchin
for the curb so long, nobody
          can find me
                            —phantom
like a pay phone
                       —i’ve outlived
                                        all my gods
—cracked cusp of bone
                              —laid open vein
—every thought of mine, a new
direction, can’t make it
home
          —can’t make it back
          to the ground
for my mind movin


by Joy Priest

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Joy Priest is a writer born and raised in Louisville, KY. She has received fellowships and grants from Callaloo, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and Rutgers University-Newark, where she will be an MFA in Poetry candidate beginning Fall 2015. Her poems and essays have been published or are upcoming in pluck! Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture, Drunken Boat, Best New Poets 2014, and The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop, among others.