Dustin Brookshire​ & Diamond Forde
​

Dustin Wants to Write a Poem with Diamond
                      Inspired by “Nicole Wants to Write a Poem with Maureen”

Dustin is moving from Florida to North Carolina
in a month, asks Diamond if she has any tips
about living in Asheville,

so Diamond tells Dustin about the hills,
how she traces the horizon
with the hills’ green shoulders,

how the fog swaddles the mountain, heavenly
bodies twisting into inseparable twine.
She mentions the mulberry tree,

and the squirrels feasting on berries—full-bellied,
dabbled with juice. There is, Diamond tells Dustin,
so much sweetness here,

and Dustin wants to sit under the mulberry tree,
confesses he Googled “mulberry tree”--
don’t judge, he couldn’t remember

what they look like—it’s palm
trees for days in South Florida.
Maybe they’ll have lunch under the tree, read poems,

or finish this poem in real life—which Diamond loves--
poetry in real life, or that a poem is breath
wrestled between lyric, a child wobbling

into its first steps, and this is the closest
Diamond ever wants to be to mothering,
while Dustin is always the mother

of the friend group— packing snacks for road trips,
making sure everyone drinks water, watching
out for creepers (old cis white men, their wandering

eyes and hungry hands). When Dustin herniated
a third disc, his other half helped him dress,
all the way to putting on Dustin’s socks and shoes--

Dustin wasn’t as helpless as a baby
but he felt like it—a hardcore type A,
which Diamond wants to be—organized,

brain cubed into order. Instead, house-cat
Diamond lounges in the sleepy bars of sunlight
padding through the bay windows,

thinks about what she will miss
about Florida: the seafood market,
brine-stink slicked along the cases

then wonders what Dustin will miss.
Men! Wilton Manors: where all the pretties play.
Dustin’s father’s side of the family has a history

of diabetes, so he loves this sweet, sweet
eye candy—harmless—at least in one way.
And he will miss Apt 9F, baked goat

cheese, and the dirtiest martinis he's ever imbibed.
He’ll miss those Saturday mid-morning naps
serenaded by the Atlantic. He’ll miss his walks

with Gregg. His walks with Denise. He’ll miss
that in Wilton Manors straight people are the other,
and this, Diamond realizes, is the most important thing

about Asheville: that we will be together,
will escape, finally, from the bars of these lines,
rub elbows at a table of tarnished wood, a million
​
togethernesses etched in its wear, and we’ll sip
lattes, nibble almond cakes, write poems—so sweet,
our place in the world.
--
Dustin Brookshire’s chapbooks include Never Picked First For Playtime (Harbor Editions, 2023), Love Most Of You Too (Harbor Editions, 2021), and To The One Who Raped Me (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2012). He is the co-editor of Let Me Say This: A Dolly Parton Poetry Anthology (Madville Publishing, 2023), which was named to the 2024 “Books All Georgians Should Read” list by the Georgia Center for the Book. 
--
​Diamond Forde is the author of Mother Body, a 2022 Kate Tufts Discovery award finalist. Her work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, Ninth Letter, Tupelo Quarterly, and more.