see me, Black as I am and call me beautiful

2 poems by I.S. Jones.

Small bottles of Suntory snuck into his daily allowance of tea / who was I to rat him out when he grinned with silver crowns showing?

not just the sting of the whip, the nothingcoloredblue of the ocean / or the spaces so dark and putrid and red black brown fleshsmelling

a boy’s head inscribed on a coin flipped

Rust smells sharp, as does crumbling foliage/and stinging taste of childhood on my tongue.

I have almost grown too fond of/windsong, the slow crescendo of a/sister’s death on the/xylophone, hypnosis.

i am dizzy and lightheaded still half in a dream

I know to consider/the potential for prophecy when giving a name.

have you ever seen a child embrace death/so rapidly it would put whole armies to shame?