nailah mathews

wildseed

in early evening black through which my
              pre-sleep spliff smoke sexually confuses       adolescent lightningflies,
              as those restless poets                        
                                                         ascend             from the basement      for mealtime,            
                           i:          wonder what wasps do           at night, wonder          how long’s it gonna
              take         two ants to scrap         this bumblebee’s broken body for parts,
                           i:          think on the green-bellied frog drying its
                                                                                              gum-pink guts across summerhot blacktop,
                                                         its dozen unsmiling cousins all live
wet and fat in the crick where they hatched   and                             
                                        recall i too am older now than i was when i decided i’d die within a week
                           of 29, those days when
             pa haggled come home with a husband,
(some unfailing young god        terrible            to behold, flexing        against the sky,
                                                 all-american-arrogance straining its hinges)
                                                                                              or an education at least!
             then i could not commit to poetry                    or the gruesome weight of healing, too
skittish to kiss a girl without    an audience     of men — !
                       
                         i:             exhale              marvel               at what i have become:                       alive,
             well-fed, wildhaired since the faggots and their friends found          no faults in me,  
spotted            cash/shelter/hormones             between revolutions to
                                                      a gendertraitor on the upswing, having learned to roam far from all
             familiar things             into      each uncertain ecstasy,           to         frot
in fields of       pale heather,                slit to                 sweet slit bursting                   purple honey,
now                  my infamous jenny-tails may never               be convicted in a court of law.
 
                                                                                                                                    thank fuck i survived.