Salt Body Shimmer
Playlist by Aricka ForemanSalt Body Shimmer delivers girls and women with their hearts and strides unbroken, however provoked by deadening violences. Aricka Foreman’s deft lyric is both canopy and camouflage, beyond able to outwork predators and the hard silences they will against laughter, booty clap, and no. Aricka Foreman’s debut collection declares its right to everyplace, finds its heroes, and offers “a spell for everything.” I’ve not read or heard poems like these. “Out of a grave vision,” Foreman condenses the accumulated pain of subjugations and raises a dazzling mist to cool our eyes, our tired flesh. —Ladan Osman, Exiles of Eden
Menarche Malarkey the Beginning the End
Neither of us were ready for itMy poor mother dealing The Talkas the crisis came—sex and the bloomthat preceded it—like a war roompreparation She came with what sheknew: doctrines on the lathe of life,how to hide secrets Ashamed ofthe slick brown tributary, I tuckedthe cotton into my pants pocket, sureit’d be missed in the weekend washMy poor mother, her hands fullof questions when did it/ why hadn’t I/ the liesfalling from my mouth like dead starsI held each cramp of shedding,clotted tissue, scrubbed stains, hidevidence How we’re taught to thinkourselves criminal, perpetuateelaborate hoaxes: all witches,sinners All women, witches:maybe If I could go back, I’d askwhat’s in the blood? She’d sayof our miraculous machinery—handing me a tampon, a divacup,a wrench, a pick axe for thisbusiness of ritual—listen, get to work
Does It Matter Who Is Your Redeemer
since the wired-eyed man couldn’t tell our home from the crack house next door: white as base when real good or dingy as aunt nora when she rolled back that rock The raggedy kids next door, always uninvited A rusted car grumbled and muffled them away For every flick’d pipe-flame, their mother spit out a pearl Their daddy’s greasy willows stuck to his days-stained shirt Through windows, wind snow sleet I’d hear them suckling that love affair until he smacked that then smacked her around Mema said she knew it was coming: the night glass groaned crash, my mother’s fire became higher, higher! I tried to pull beyond that loam of sleep, out of a grave vision Stretched my arms into brown vines crawling through the pitch, flames bright and hot as angels Crackle ashed our house clean My mother drug my limp-woke body down the drive like impatience is a virtue approximate to flight And fight How long it took to quash her rage: waiting on the engine men Waiting for my father For rain Mema says prayers need feet I count on my toes to ten, ten times til our house becomes a missing tooth in the night’s mouth
Mary Woodson Sets the Grits Straight
They remember the clumped hotgrain burning breakdowns into his back,his comeback to God Third degree salvationThrough word-of-mouth I’m his Wife Girlfriend LoverWho gets it right The pistol’s click-downtil the hole blew open a way to say no, not todayYou crazy for that one Mary Which door we enter throughMuseum of dollar store dames Thrift fur and wrongdiagnoses Light wanderers through wrought iron gatesWho needs who when legends need a fix Forget usuntil we’re dead Revised inaccurate if written at allParanoid peony Pen us songs to sit us up rightMake me happy baby, weave your cry downin your bones, let me sing baby crazy I can’t leaveyour love alone Crazy which door threw: archway,rot iron gait, nails bruised at the beds, scarlet and slickWas I scratching my way to the beginning?Not his heard degree burnclick down of the pistol’s clamor, they saidhe wanted me to be his knife, his whirlfriendA hole enough to let the static out We rarelystrut through the front dour Often, menbelieve we have the keys to unlocking every ghostthey can’t bear to face
Breakbeat Aubade with Anemones and Lucky Fish
Waiting and waiting, death I kept waiting Despitethe world’s benevolent violence Wants rich and long,questions curled as cowrie See: a thousand lucky fish in the Grimoire of My Life The wild language of airsucked between teeth and the sibilance we submit to Is the body not for this If Black writhe of being aliveWhat steel-clap hand, drunk bones and premonition:sapid pelvis in translation, torso of trap and tropical bassI slither and bend into every note I slip maestro, between your thresh and breakbeat,sweat a sea of wild anemones Salt, so a deep songChest warm with the heat of our need and the menthol to comeHigh off echolocation, lights yellow the streets Beneath green rooms, I slip off my thick flitBetween floors cumbia mouths my name,says descend in and pay nothing Give up the veils between us Ecstatic corona, I piercethrough the shrill season, against Shudder Teem brinkWoman in line with deliverance Fever And the February a body begs