belief in grief like belief in womb i’ve seen it bleed knight sky with knives through it remains a perfect document for drunk & feral strangers rooting around waxy blue recycling for a lick of corn turned moonshine above, there are still the dippers resting against one another like forks skewered red cassiopeia tied to her proud chair in my version of things none of it hurts so much a kiss is always without exit wound find your way back together with the wide and winking asterisks
Opus
been wondering if a noun makes a mouth assuming form just to leave the lips for stranger lands consider meter measure melody how to control a splinter of a thing there is much to say about how word finds sun in a cave & swallows it down too much percussion in the body & the wound will open like an envelope weeping red letters to spell do you want a lover or an audience? you invoke hope without knowing hope’s price & you love a love that sees you lovely & you hear Jarabi on the lips of a crowd & it all waters you down
Captain’s Log
another day without pulp stillness just can’t find its teeth stays gumming at the nerve of more shape to hold
there are no people, no steeple no lavender salts to wake & warm you so the body palms the cold side of the bed reaches for movement & wears it through holy as the week after summer
the limbs learn a busted blue rhythm following the greased mechanism of the hips snagging & tripping over their own chain vowel-shy, the mouth whispers am I shining yet? wilting to the ground to wish on stray pollen
& we are all stuck under the same snowglobe but this body is my own so I stay thinking in the striped, winking language of sunlight while this skin practices loving me back
Imani Christopher grew up near Dallas, Texas. She is currently a student at the The New School, where she studies screenwriting, fiction, and poetry. Find her on Instagram @cmonimaan.
Miriam Rae-Silver is an artist currently painting in oils and making comics. Her work can be seen at miriamraesilver.com.
