Poetry: Three Poems by m mick powell
day, too, is a thing changed by time
you hope no one ever calls your death a senseless act of anything. he who kills
you will do so out of raging passion. you will die knowing you were always
right; you knew it would be him. and it’s politically incorrect to correct the
dying. that you are included among the dying is something a teenage version of
yourself would never accept.
coincidentally, you say this to no one who finds it coincidental: everyone you’ve
loved is made of river water, those converging tributaries. you’ve got pretty good
at swimming, at holding your breath, at having your body hooked and then
knifed and then used for its oil. you bled through your panties and on to the bed
sheets because you didn’t know it was coming. this was forgivable. you never
asked. you made breakfast.
you made plantains. you called them plantains because you were afraid to use
your grandmother’s language. you cupped pink champagne in your palms and
watched the bubbles die. you read your horoscope, ate the platanus. you
refreshed facebook and email and snapchat interchangeably for six minutes
straight. you thought about fucking someone you’ve never thought about fucking
before. you wondered if you could survive a social media hiatus. you wondered if
you should change the sheets.
the horoscope said: “you’re due for a love letter.” ok here it goes: without you,
i’d be dead. this is a sad truth you dedicate to your bong. you’ve been accused of
excessive infatuations, miniature obsessions, photographing the plants before
they’re ready to be seen. there’s a picture of you from middle school in a white
dress with pink glitter pressed into a cursive pattern. all night at the school dance,
the glitter grinded into your skin.
there is a picture, too, of Ma with washed hair and Pa in a white shirt, arm about
her waist, a burning joint coming close to his lips. once, he cut a straight line into
her throat. here, the scar beneath her chin. once, he took her to a bordertown and
pressed a loaded glock to her forehead. once, she
says, he made a chicken dinner, poured a glass of white zin, learned to dance
batuque in her mother’s living room. once, she reminds you, he pulled a splinter
straight from your palm.
monarch in the jasmine tree
i do my friends a favor by taste-testing their edibles. they are not worth mentioning, which is to say they are suitable. we spend the entire evening talking about kink and fetish, the merciless choke, blunt bruises on the back of our hands, lackluster poems with Very Good Titles and their correlation with click-bait. poor fish. poor french fry. poor christmas tree losing green on the streets of a city i’ve seen demolish an entire girl. an entire girl i loved, too. some kind of luck. some kind of karma. me and all my past selves in all my past lives have spent eternity burying you, you fucking zombie, you monster eating moonlight outside my window. if i know no biblical stories to give to my daughters for hard times, will they suffer as i have? i have chosen myself, my hands unjeweled. i have chewed my nails into perfect squares. we eat grease with our blunt-bruised hands, my friends and i. we touch each other’s bodies with them, sway to the song about sugar and bedpost and desire’s dangerous hold. i hold them up to the light. lately, i am less jealous of the way florida produces fruit. each morning i rise and position my body in front of the sun.
caesura
the morning after my vibrator died midway thru / versace on the floor got me surprisingly & insatiably wet in the lyft / got me feeling teenage & girlish in all the wrong places / this has always been the curse i’ve carried / its hideous rot / its gorgeous thunder / every tree on the way to new haven looks the same / threadbare / too close together / just another part of the universe / submerged in snow / there is a proverb about tree roots / or maybe a metaphor / i forget / the time he tried to kiss me / after we chaperoned the prom / until this morning / in the lyft / i remember / how he mouthed himself / into noble / into nice-guy / god / it’s exhausting / the music-less-ness / the unproud glare / body spinning around the beam / the magic trick / the dark & glittered eyelid / the chromatic acrylic / ::: / here i am / today / escalating into the wet earth / until i see it / god / every time i touch myself / i feel like i am fucking a ghost
About m mick powell
m mick powell (she/her) is a Black queer femme feminist, poet, and professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. keep up with her at www.mickpowellpoet.com and @mickmakesmagic.art.