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i got a dog
i got a cat
i got a rat
i got cockroaches
and guess what
i have more trouble
out of you
than i have
out of them
From Firespitter: The Collected Poems of Jayne Cortez, edited by Margaret Busby (Nightboat Books, 2025). Copyright © 2025 by Jayne Cortez. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
A solo full of quivering flesh flying
like black crows from the bottom of nothing to
the top of nowhere in a hall of suicide
suicide hall of consciousness trying to
suicide us in yellow flames of awareness order &
whiteness
in the name of god and leprosy
wild pimps of desperation
wet dogs & pigs
frighten by the genius of pure black rage
the demise of death and the suicide birth of Shango
of Ogun iron magic and the mistress of moisture
Corina Corina
Talking about New Orleans
About deforestation & the flood of vodun paraphernalia
the Congo line losing its Congo
the funeral bands losing their funding
the killer winds humming intertribal warfare hums into
two storm-surges
touching down tonguing the ground
three thousand times in a circle of grief