2020
Palette Poetry’s 2020 Sappho Award Winner—October 2020
They have made this Black body a war I never asked for. The dirt of my skin is peppered with dozens of dying stars.
NEW POEMS
VIDA LIT REVIEW
September 2020
“How many mouths / could I buy with a $20?
How many hours/ could I buy with a $20?
How many years/ do you think
they would let me rot…”
AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW
JULY 2020
“When you turn/ from yourselves to see your cities burning—/ do you not melt? Am I the only one on fire? / Texas is drowning. The flooded borders/ overcome with waves of helpushelpushelpus/ congeals into cement puddles large enough to float/ & swallow our country of survivors. Are we not/ now—all wet? Is my body the only one still gasping for air?/ You cannot tell me—there is nothing wrong with the weather.”
F(R)ICTION
JULY 2020
“Tired of trying to be touched/ in places that no longer exist,/ we amuse ourselves in the dark/
by hyphenating our names/ with invisible bodies, smoking/ menthols & laughing/ about the large dicks/ of our dead husbands.
+ 2020+
+2019+
Poetry Magazine
“The streets ram themselves into coochies:
sodden women with bamboo for backs
& taffy for sex. Both sweet & sour.”
THE RUMPUS
JUNE 2019
“dig under—blocks & blocks of black bodies—for fresh water. under the side-streets. groan for our broken pipes. our stolen gardens. look for where it all went wrong. dig the ruined parts out. reach inside ourselves because somebody—somebody—has got to fix the goddamned plumbing in here.”
CINCINNATI REVIEW
“A wave of bodies—glittering onyx—catch air/dip & weave past the sill like a river of flies/ that splinters suddenly at the sight of Her./ A legion of blxck ants tripping down the street/ screaming RUN/ as Gawd pulls a hammer—/ whips spiders all through my kitchen.”
+2019+
LINDEN AVENUE
When slit open—I seep through.
TAHOMA LITERARY
When we finally begin to break/ our bones shattering under the serrated tongue
HOMOLOGY LIT
the blonde uber driver / with my address, name & number
PIDGEONHOLES
your name in suspension. my mouth empties itself
into long stretches of nowhere. you still live
FOUNDRY
With spoiled milk seeping
from its many small brown mouths…
GLASS POETRY SERIES
the sweetbread of your figure is smeared in ScrewMe-red lipstick.