for Dominique
I know this
from looking
into store fronts
taste buds voguing
alight from the way
treasure glows
when I imagine
pressing its opulence
into your hand
I want to buy you
a cobalt velvet couch
all your haters’ teeth
strung up like pearls
a cannabis vineyard
and plane tickets
to every island
on earth
but my pockets
are filled with
lint and love alone
touch these inanimate gods
to my eyelids
when you kiss me
linen leather
gator skin silk
satin lace onyx
marble gold ferns
leopard crystal
sandalwood mink
pearl stiletto
matte nails and plush
lips glossed
in my 90s baby saliva
pour the glitter
over my bare skin
I want a lavish life
us in the crook
of a hammock
incensed by romance
the bowerbird will
forgo rest and meals
so he may prim
and anticipate amenity
for his singing lover
call me a gaunt bird
a keeper of altars
shrines to the tactile
how they shine for you
fold your wings
around my shoulders
promise me that
should I drown
in want-made waste
the dress I sink in
will be exquisite
From Hull (Nightboat Books, 2019). Copyright © 2019 Xan Phillips. Used with permission of Nightboat Books, nightboat.org.
the life of a writer is desire
i hammer into the page
i make up my mind: the streetlight
is not the moon, but anything can be
made beautiful under the ease
of my hammer
i wish you could see that i write in blue ink
the color of oceans & early mornings
& everything is clear like
tears rushing towards the chin
of my desire. i pen what i’m meant
to pen. how deep in love i am
& how silly of me to spend all morning dreaming
about love & not expect my
desire to set me free
the knives of my fingers tap
out the notion that if i turn the key
it will unlock.
admittedly, i am foolish
about love—a simple yes excites me—
’cause i know that all that i require will be met
like water meets the tongue. it’s scary
desire, a small fan at my window in the summer,
a booklight lighting the pages of my life
Copyright © 2021 by Jalynn Harris. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 19, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.