again, been trailing
behind my lace
again, been
telling all my suns they need to hold
a holy but even summer’s a slicker,
mama, a wash,
& another thing is
thunder, I may wish
for the sword but I’m soft
in the skirt when I see
the girls soft
in theirs, I know, the unknown
parts
from them, & then it’s a fury in the
May my mind lost
as if the garden God
pruned His men out of
fed the fire out
from under feeling
what I feel what I tell
myself to remember
sulfur, smoked between
her lips I heard
the coming of
the Lord but couldn’t loose
myself, mama,
couldn’t burn my bad
old beauty down
to the cherry topping a tube of paper
rolled around then licked, livid,
was her
tongue dried
honey, burnt marvel,
the slats of a barn raised up
hallelujah
the hands
said they feared a Lord with
ugly lips, I know
it’s not right but I
don’t
know what my left is doing,
mama, under
the hunger I found my
self in half
a mine & half
a her
bodied, cold as cut grocery
roses, a bloomed
sickness all pink smelling, mama, & I
don’t know if it’s my
self or your God
I should blame.
© Copyright 2018 by Emma Bolden. Used with the permission of the author. This poem originally appeared in Quarterly West Issue 93.