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  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
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  • Issue 23 Spring 2022
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Maya Marshall

Portrait in the Lone Star[1]


Sometimes two women meet and smile for no one else.
 
I’ve looked into the open and watched
the month’s first rivulet descend, as she called
on my tongue’s continued praise.
 
In the world, outside of plush duvets and soft bedfellows,
men with knives call the tide of blood from daughters.
 
I don’t know what I would do
if a man looked like my daddy hated me,
hated my sex all the more because I did not want him
to have it, or because I have wanted a woman too--
 
wanted to roll a body out of, unclasp the straps.
What if the only time a black man loves me is when I’m dressing his wounds?
 
Or, on a given day, I prefer the sweet humidity of a lipsticked breath,
the ice trail on a summer belly?
 
Somewhere in Texas two women lay together openly in bayou humidity,
croon in the lovers’ spit.
 
Later, one woman’s father unclasped the straps, rolled the bodies
out of a red Kia. Did she ever call him daddy?
 
Was it like the first time he held her?
 
Those bodies near the dumpster, faces facing or turned.
Imagine the lovers’ last acts were defiant, protective.
The women battered, him, a door to break through.


[1]James Cosby, 46, bludgeoned his daughter Britney Cosby to death and shot her lover, Crystal Jackson, on March 6 before dumping the bodies near the ferry gate in Port Bolivar, Texas, police believe.
 https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/dad-killed-daughter-lesbian-lover-gay-mom-article-1.1722103





--
Maya Marshall is an editor and a poet. She is co-founder of underbelly. Marshall, a Callaloo fellow and a Cave Canem Graduate Fellow, serves as a manuscript editor for Haymarket Books. Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming in Best New Poets 2019, RHINO, Blackbird, and eslewhere.

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  • Home
  • About
    • Our Story
    • Masthead
  • Submit
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Submit Here
  • Features
  • Interviews
  • Book Reviews
  • Previous Issues
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  • Contact
  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Art Fall 2021 >
      • Bonnie Severien Fall 2021
      • Camilla Taylor Fall 2021
      • Guilherme Bergamini Fall 2021
      • Emanuela Iorga Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Poetry Fall 2021 >
      • Maureen Alsop Fall 2021
      • Annah Browning Fall 2021
      • Romana Iorga Fall 2021
      • Natalie Hampton Fall 2021
      • Sherine Gilmour Fall 2021
      • Adam Day Fall 2021
      • Amanda Auchter Fall 2021
      • Adam Tavel Fall 2021
      • Sara Moore Fall 2021
      • Karen Rigby Fall 2021
      • Daniel Zhang Fall 2021
      • Erika Lutzner Fall 2021
      • Kindall Fredricks Fall 2021
      • Cin Salach Fall 2021
      • Andrew Zawacki Fall 2021
      • Micah Ruelle Fall 2021
      • Rachel Stempel Fall 2021
      • Haley Wooning Fall 2021
      • Rikki Santer Fall 2021
      • Evy Shen Fall 2021
      • Suzanne Frischkorn Fall 2021
      • Danielle Rose Fall 2021
      • Eric Burgoyne Fall 2021
      • John Cullen Fall 2021
      • Maureen Seaton Fall 2021
      • Hannah Stephens Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Nonfiction Fall 2021 >
      • Kevin Grauke Fall 2021
      • Courtney Justus Fall 2021
      • Amy Nicholson Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Fiction Fall 2021 >
      • Tina Jenkins Bell Fall 2021
      • David Obuchowski Fall 2021
      • Thomas Misuraca Fall 2021
      • Aiden Baker Fall 2021
      • Jenny Magnus Fall 2021
  • Issue 23 Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Art Spring 2022 >
      • Jonathan Kvassay Spring 2022
      • Karyna McGlynn Spring 2022
      • Andrea Kowch Spring 2022
      • Layla Garcia-Torres Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Poetry Spring 2022 >
      • Robin Gow Spring 2022
      • T.D. Walker Spring 2022
      • Jen Schalliol Huang Spring 2022
      • Yvonne Zipter Spring 2022
      • Carrie McGath Spring 2022
      • Lupita Eyde-Tucker Spring 2022
      • Susan L. Leary Spring 2022
      • Kate Sweeney Spring 2022
      • Rita Mookerjee Spring 2022
      • Erin Carlyle Spring 2022
      • Cori Bratty-Rudd Spring 2022
      • Jen Karetnick Spring 2022
      • Meghan Sterling Spring 2022
      • Lorelei Bacht Spring 2022
      • Michael Passafiume Spring 2022
      • Jeannine Hall Gailey Spring 2022
      • Phil Goldstein Spring 2022
      • Michael Mingo Spring 2022
      • Angie Macri Spring 2022
      • Martha Silano Spring 2022
      • Vismai Rao Spring 2022
      • Anna Laura Reeve Spring 2022
      • Jenny Irish Spring 2022
      • Marek Kulig Spring 2022
      • Jami Macarty Spring 2022
      • Sarah A. Rae Spring 2022
      • Brittney Corrigan Spring 2022
      • Callista Buchen Spring 2022
      • Issam Zineh Spring 2022
      • MICHAEL CHANG Spring 2022
      • henry 7. reneau, jr. Spring 2022
      • Leah Umansky Spring 2022
      • Cody Beck Spring 2022
      • Danyal Kim Spring 2022
      • Rachel DeWoskin Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Fiction Spring 2022 >
      • Melissa Boberg Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Nonfiction Spring 2022 >
      • Srinaath Perangur Spring 2022
      • Audrey T. Carroll Spring 2022