Sex, Kink, and the Erotic: Two Poems by Jubi Arriola-Headley

Questionnaire (I)
after Bhanu Kapil


Q: Who is responsible for your mother’s suffering? 

A: Is there ever any answer other than 
I am? I am. From that first time I took 
another thug’s aching cock in my mouth, 
cradled it in the curve of my tongue, 
sank to my knees, reached up, grabbed 
his waist to pull him deeper into me, 
suckled until I tasted his hot bitter seed, 
knew the sweat-soaked glow of triumph:
how was this not a betrayal, proclaiming
this moment a nursing?

Pleasure Insurrections III

I know you’ll call me a trickster – slick, as if 
that’s an icky thing to be – but I swear on each  

of my stifled desires, in my immediate last life 
I was a banana slug. Skin the color of spun sunshine, 

ten inches long, where it counted; what 
would you not give to be thus endowed? Yet 

possessed of many genders, of lusts I am
yet afraid to name; when bent, sure, I could 

get myself off, but I’ve always preferred the touch 
of another. (I phrase it in the singular so you won’t 

think me a slithering thing: I know 
what I am, I am.) In our pursuit of the fruit 

we’d take the form of matter and myth – let time be 
swallowed by the light, order by chaos, conviction 

by doubt, entering each other 
as if we were not impossible. We are. I typically don’t 

apologize for my proselytizing but forgive me this: 
before we search for signs of life on other planets, before 

we stipulate that there’s white people in the future, how about 
we situate ourselves in the now? I am hungry for this day.

Photo Credit: Beowulf Sheehan

About Jubi Arriola-Headley

JUBI ARRIOLA-HEADLEY (he/him) is a Blacqueer poet, storyteller, first-generation United Statesian and author of the poetry collection original kink (Sibling Rivalry Press), recipient of the 2021 Housatonic Book Award. Jubi has received support for his work from Yaddo, Millay Arts, Lambda Literary, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and his poems have been featured in Literary Hub, Kweli Journal, Southern Humanities Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Nimrod,  PBS NewsHour’s Brief But Spectacular, & elsewhere. Jubi lives with his husband in South Florida, on ancestral Tequesta, Miccosukee, and Seminole lands, and his work explores themes of masculinity, vulnerability, rage, tenderness & joy. Black Lives Matter. Trans Lives Matter. Stop Asian Hate. Art is Labor. Abolish Policing. Eat the Rich. Stay Kinky. Free Palestine.