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Hallelujah for the still water's furious roar
pounding me like god into crumbs.
In the beginning it was want, touch, the touch of want,
being transgressed by the dangerously different,
a film noir cartoon of my body's insurrection
watching me storm through the moral checkpoint
where desire stripped down is a birdcage of beaks—
minus the shimmer of ebony wings intent on escape.
It was me who helped dirty things fly,
pigeons praying on the bed of my body
a translucent fan of origami skin thrashing heaven,
screeching listen to me, listen to hands that don't give a damn
in a stranger's pants at 2:00 AM. Hands become bowl
beneath the body of Christ in a small southern church
where folded palms never could hold my attention.
Being a member of only one body, one sanctified torso
to enter and exit, my tongue found a reason to not
swallow itself as punishment for such incorrectness,
unleashing words like a gentle pit bull raised on
sweet meat of sameness. Unlike David
no harp taught my hands the harmony
of sling and song. Unlike David it wasn't Goliath
who fed me the fear of men. I was safe, sleeping there,
a conqueror's seed in my mouth.