Speak easy
Abolition blow up gun lisping hissing puckering at the sunday blues straight to monday blues
Loaf of red lipstick gathering our speeches of bloodshed of doomed ledge of risk left
to pout in the meddling hesitation and then the soul trapped in one family for generations decides against its arrow going I still have the note he passed me
etched into my skin soft dent of window eyes that jump like wind eyes that isolate the moment for an eternity yanking you into it begging you back to life
Returning now to how it feels when you’re a kid and the pimps come back to the neighborhood in furs and cadillacs acting out our enemies’ fantasies
Copyright © 2021 by Harmony Holiday. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 25, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.