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Joi’ C. Weathers is an award-winning marketer turned writer and third-generation Chicago South Sider with over 14 years of experience leading creative campaigns for global brands like Microsoft and Meta. She’s been recognized with a Cannes Lion, multiple regional Emmys, Golden Trumpet Awards from the Publicity Club of Chicago (PCC), and ADC and AICP honors. She excels at blending cultural storytelling with business success, but her true passion lies in prose. Currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at Temple University, Joi’ amplifies Black voices and celebrates the African Diaspora through her work. A 2025 Project Completion Grant recipient, she is currently finalizing her manuscript for her debut novel, which centers around themes of identity, community, autonomy, and the power of self-acceptance. In addition, she will join the 2025 ‘Black Philadelphia’ symposium as a panelist, hosted by The Library Company of Philadelphia, 1838 Black Metropolis, and UPenn, where she will discuss reclaiming the narrative of Black women. She is the host of the award-winning Obsidian Collection podcast while maintaining her brand Joi Has Questions , dedicated to sharing Black History. Through storytelling and advocacy, Joi’ continues to celebrate the Black Diaspora in all she does. Learn more about Joi’ on her website iamjoicweathers.com and follow her on social media: @Joihasquestions. Redd Ain’t Never Been Just A Color There was never a woman like Ms. Redd. A goddess who required no finery to prove her divinity, she simply was. In human form, she was a woman of high morals, said, “ Mister ”  and “ Ma’am ”  if you were an elder, and shushed her gals if they were talking too loose. One glare was all it took. “Stop talking all crazy like you don’t see these babies walking by us.” Sure enough, the conversation ceased until they were out of earshot and then they’d cut up again. The only time she faltered in her propriety was if she’d drank too much, for even Gods could not always be perfect. She rarely fought. “Fighting was for heathens,” I had once heard her say. And Redd, by no means, was a heathen.  Every day waking no earlier than Noon she surveyed the land and those whom she lorded over. She had a simple routine for meeting people, standing on the East side of the block across the street from the newspaper stand, lazily taking in her days. I’d sometimes catch glances of her when my mother wasn’t hissing at me to not look at her.  “Hope, turn your head. I don’t want you looking at that naked heifer with her tail hanging all out.”  That only made me want to look more at the impossibility of Ms. Redd containing her curves in a cutoff tee and tight Daisy Duke shorts. Ironically, she never wore the color she was named after. She harnessed its power from the depths of her being. It was amazing to see how she drew attention.  Never one to make the first move, if someone whistled at her, she’d look around as if to say, “Who, me?” Then, without uttering a word, she would return to intensely concentrating on whatever mundane task she was attending to. Even though she and her potential friend knew it was a game, this part of the chase had to be abided by. There was decorum to be upheld. It was to be clear that she was the wanted one, even though she had peeped her John from a mile away. She dangled her innocence before her victims, tricking them, literally, into believing they were in charge when they never truly were. The pursuant would become more enthusiastic, panting, “Come on now, baby. Why you  out here being so mean to me?” “Heyyyyyy suga,” she’d purr. “If you want to speak to me, call me Ms. Redd. I ain’t one of these lil’ hoes out here.” Whether she was talking to a man or woman, they would quickly correct themselves to keep in her good graces, “Well, excuse me, Ms. Redd… say how bout’ we go for a ride?” She would stare for a second, probably to do a temperature check and assess if they could turn into a dangerous situation. She never bothered to ask if they were a cop or not. What for? Some of her best clients were police officers, and at the end of the day, the clientele was the clientele. Once she garnered that they wouldn’t test her prowess with her switchblade, she’d meander up to their car real slow-like.  “Well now if you want to ride with Ms. Redd, then a ride you gon’ get.”  Then they’d be off. When she returned, magically there was not a hair out of place, nor a yank of her skirt that had to be rearranged, and her tomato lipstick was just as bright as it was before. She emerged just as perfect as she’d gone. She wasn’t a heathen, indeed. Ms. Redd represented a wildness I didn’t see within my mother. She represented follow-through. My mom always seemed to apologize for her rage, as if it was attached to failing to be her higher self, and it was exhausting. She came off like a damp rag over a fire, her own fire; she’d light it, then panic at what could happen, so she’d quickly suffocate it before it ever became an untamable blaze. With Ms. Redd, there was an acceptance that she could be as destructive as she was wonderful. Even when she apologized for cursing, it never came out as a plea, it was as simple as one plus one, she was wrong, she was sorry, but that was the end of it. I didn’t know how to express to my mother that I saw she was struggling, that whatever she was trying to keep from me was in plain view, and I wondered if I told her that I saw the unhappiness she tried so hard to shield if I’d be in trouble.  I had a feeling that daughters weren’t supposed to tell their mothers, “I know you’re a fraud.” The only reason I was aware was because I was hiding my sorrow, too. My mother would be my future self if I hid for too long. Ms. Redd wasn’t an everyday experience as she had multiple blocks to claim. So seeing her on Prairie Avenue was a special treat. In her line of work, there was no management to report to, no boss who took a cut like a tax collector. She was her very own Kingmaker. She was like a sharp inhalation when it was thirty below.  In my world women around me molded themselves into the life they’d been given, whether they were good little Christian wives, or if they were yelling down the block after some “No accounting ass nigga, who don’t take care of his kids.”  They all rang the same boring bell. Not Ms. Redd, though. Even on one random summer day when I saw her get arrested for slicing my neighbor’s face for not fairly splitting the cost of their favorite malt liquor, she held her head up high, like she ain’t have a care in the world. I didn’t see her again until Mr. Lee’s peonies were blooming the following summer. She carried on as if time had waited for her, and to an extent it had. No one had customer service like her, so the patrons she had lost due to her jail stint eagerly returned. She’d chide them saying, “So what this I hear about you cheating on Ms. Redd? I have a mind to charge you double, just caz’ you forgot about me. You then hurt my feelings. You know you my favorite.”   Of course, her Johns would swear up and down that they had done no such thing, and how could anyone forget about her? How she was the best, what in the world did she think made them drive so far into this neighborhood other than her? She accepted their worship, their apologies, and their money, and continued with her life. That’s what was so magnetic about Ms. Redd, the fact that you could never bring her down when she already claimed what the mirror showed her. She was a whore like water was wet, yet she made sure everyone knew she was worthy of respect. She found a way to command it and did it in a way that other women could not. I never saw Ms. Redd chase after no man and never saw her fight over the love from either. I never saw her make herself small so a man could feel big. Never saw her make pot roast when she had a taste for ribs, never saw her fish for compliments for the very meal she had conceded her own taste buds for. From the crown of her fanned-out beehive to the crimson-colored toes that matched her nails, Ms. Redd was someone to aspire after. Yet, none of the women of my block did. Partly because some of her Johns were actually their men. Since these women were in no position to lash out at them for their misdeeds, they lashed at Redd, because their accountability had to go somewhere. What was the point of confronting a man you knew you weren’t going to leave to begin with? So they laid their shame at her feet. How could their husbands resist when she paraded around the neighborhood like that? What choice did they have to fight her evil ways? In the blink of an eye, these fully-grown able-bodied men became no more than misguided babes, not willing participants. Yet, none of the women ever dared to confront Redd. They might have cut their eyes at her, but it was always once her back was to them. No woman I knew was that crazy, for she would have cut them to smithereens, literally. When it came to my home, the most I ever heard from my mother was a sharp click of her teeth whenever she saw Ms. Redd, but I attributed her disgust more so because of how short her shorts always were. Nothing in the slightest gave me the inclination that my mother had a personal reason to not like her. Her distaste for Ms. Redd was purely out of feminine solidarity. For all the trouble my parents gave one another, infidelity never was an issue I saw them face, and to be honest it is the one situation I think would have fully consumed my mother to a wildfire. Yet, it never stopped my mother from taking part in the bash fest that sprang forth every time Ms. Redd walked by. Not even pruning her tulips could keep her from listening in. “Y’all heard that fight the other night Tisha was having with her man Ronell?” Ms. Lee  would start.   “How could we not, she was throwing all his clothes off the balcony,” Gloria would  chime in. “Well, you know it’s because of you-know-who.” “When ain’t that heifer breaking up someone’s family.” Then as if on cue they’d all look down at me and gasp as they realized they had said too much in front of me. “Hope go upstairs and refill this water pitcher.” “Mommy, but the hose is right–” “Girl I said go upstairs,” My mom cut me off.  Everyone knew I had to go upstairs to get out of “grown folks’ business,”  but it annoyed me to no end that they spoke so harshly of Ms. Redd. From where I stood, she was nice. She always smiled when she saw me and said, “Hey now” when I told her how many A’s I got on my report card. Her encouragement was no different than anyone else’s, even if it did come with a few fewer articles of clothing. Even though I was only twelve, there was something about Ms. Redd that I wanted to be like. It had nothing to do with attention. My encounter with Jason had killed any desire I had to want to be seen by anyone. It was Redd’s power. It was her ability not to care. I wanted that for myself. I wanted my shoulders to be straight like hers. I didn’t want to walk, I wanted to saunter. Those had been my thoughts as I hung my head over the porch one afternoon. It was too hot to play outside and my parents were elsewhere in our apartment. So, I took one of the rare moments to enjoy our balcony alone. I had watched Redd walk past, my eyes following her all the way to the Judah Brothers grocery store. I imagined she would buy her usual Colt 45 and a new pack of Newports. It was then I settled on the one thing that I could do as an homage to her. The next time I had a hair appointment at Yehia’s, I was going to ask the nail tech Ms. Candice to paint my nails red. I had saved up enough money for one bottle of OPI nail polish, and there was a beauty supply store right next to the salon. I felt settled with my decision, even excited at the prospect that it would shock my parents. I was acting more like Ms. Redd already. A few weeks later as I sat in my beautician’s chair, I put my plan in motion. I had already secured the nail polish as Ms. Francela had allowed me to go next door to buy some butterfly clips I wanted to put in my hair. I added the polish to my purchase and calmly walked back into the salon. I knew my parents had promised we were going to dinner that night, so I figured I would have time to persuade them, should they object to my polish choice. Come hell or high water I was going to look like Ms. Redd if it killed me. Time was on my side that day as the nail tech, Ms. Candice, was able to squeeze me in.  She pressed me for confirmation that it was okay to paint my nails that color, and my voice didn’t falter when I responded, “It’s okay my parents won’t mind.” Her slow and deliberate moments told me she didn’t believe me, but she did it anyway.  When she was done, I looked down at my hands with happiness. There was something on my body for me to love again. I was beside myself. *** “Have you lost your mind?” my parents said in unison once my hands emerged from my lap. Nuzzled in a booth in the restaurant, I faced a firing squad of judgment. “Now you know better than to have that lady put red nail polish on your hands. Who you  out here trying to look like some floozy?” “What even possessed Candice to do it is my question,” my daddy was beside himself.  Well, if I was being honest, I was trying to be like one floozy, in particular. My mom seemed genuinely shocked that she even had to bring this error to my attention. My daddy’s eyes were the size of saucers as if he had caught me kissing a boy behind the shed. Their faces seemed to say,  How do you not just know what this means? But I didn’t know their fears. All I knew was the freedom I felt. I wanted something that reminded me of Ms. Redd, of her mightiness. The way she dared to judge the world right back for having the audacity to outcast her in the first place. For some odd reason, I found myself holding back tears, to envision a swab of acetone-doused cotton balls in my hands, would be killing something else within myself. I had already died the day Jason had stripped me of my innocence. I refused to die again. The car ride home was a quiet one but my rage towards my parents' seeming hypocrisy radiated off me like the sun’s rays. I was too proud to plead with them to let me keep my nails as it went without saying that the polish was gone the minute we got upstairs. They stood over me as I wiped any trace of wildness from my body. I saw them nod as I finished on my very last nail, satisfied that I was once again their perfect and obedient daughter. What they didn’t have was the bottle. In their crusade, it hadn’t even crossed their minds that the nail polish was in my possession. So, from that night, and for more days than I could count afterward, I would paint my right pinky nail, as a reminder of who I could be. Even though I had to wipe off the polish before it set, I would still see remnants in my cuticle bed, and it gave me a trill. No, I never spoke to Ms. Redd on the regular, and more times than not it seemed that she didn’t even know I existed and that was the way it was supposed to be. She was sure of her divinity, whereas I had no clue mine could even exist. Yet, the embers I saw growing from the spot of color on my one nail waited patiently for me to blow on them so that one day I would be a fire that wasn’t too scared to burn. ### Torch Literary Arts  is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

Elisha Mykelti conjures poetry that honors sight. She serves on the editorial board for Sundress Publications. She received the 2023 Emily Morrison Poetry Prize, and her work has appeared in Berkeley Poetry Review . Elisha is pursuing an MFA in poetry at Virginia Tech, where she is working on her manuscript, “TWOHEAD: Rootwork.” She holds a BA in English from the University of Tennessee. In her free time, Elisha is a perpetual hobbyist and reads tarot. With Three Fingers, I Point to hell with you , swallowing                 a stiltoned olive and cucumber gin        I learned spades at a family dinner, so that November could sleep; and I could live without you  avid and drinking.  My partner, a good woman,  handled the men by set, witness, and wag. Then the family’s mouth  opened to our plate of eight books. We rode the ninth in our last hand.  The girls spit my husband, my husband into the punch bowl and mine calls me over to cold cut sandwiches What do you think at the sough of my name? Me enid then— my kitty jaw? I have your last name,  inked on the ace’s foot  headside down. ### Torch Literary Arts  is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

Sakena Jwan Washington (she/her)   is a Pittsburgh boomeranger and creative nonfiction writer. She was recently named the 2024-25 Emerging Black Writer-in-Residence at Chatham University where she is teaching MFA in Creative Writing students and developing a limited-edition chapbook as part of the Boosie Bolden Chapbook Series  published by  The Fourth River . She is also the current guest editor for Tributaries , the weekly online publication for The Fourth River. Her work has appeared in Bellevue Literary Review , Huffington Post , Jellyfish Review, and others. In 2021, her flash essay, "The Blood Remains" was nominated for the 2021 Best of the Net anthology. She is also one of five Pittsburgh-based storytellers who documented the public art project, "Art in Parks" in the city's Allegheny Regional Asset District parks. She studied English at Clark Atlanta University and earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University, Los Angeles. More of her work can be found at  sakenajwan.com . Love is Not Loud I got married on a sunny, 80-degree day in late September before two reverends, 101 family and friends, four vendors, and my therapist. Not a physical therapist, but the kind that makes sense of my brain.  I stopped short of the aisle to take a deep breath. The church I got married in had no air conditioning and a slow trickle of sweat tickled the skin beneath the bodice of my wedding gown and sat trapped above my ribcage. I turned to my brother, Daryl, who clutched my right arm next to his torso before walking me down the aisle.  I took his fingers and pressed them to the side of my neck. “Feel my pulse.” It throbbed in a discordant house beat.  He pulled his fingers back and smiled. I can’t remember what he said, beyond a silent wow, but his hooded eyes widened as he grinned. He probably told me it was a good thing. Daryl subscribed to the same ethos as me: love is loud. When the procession song, “You and I,” began the opening chords triggered a wave of carbonated tingles up and across my back. Our musician channeled Stevie Wonder and everyone stood and smiled towards the back of the church.  Daryl and I made our entrance and took our first step down the aisle. I looked to my left. Standing alone in the last row of the center pew was a petite woman with sandy blonde hair. We locked eyes and she scanned me approvingly. It was my therapist Hannah. I invited her months prior, but she declined. “I’m your therapist. I can’t come to your wedding.” I joked that she could pretend to be on my mother’s side because of my mother’s light skin. “No one would know.” But then she showed up anyway. She wasn’t there to make a scene or object to our union, but to witness my metamorphosis. She floated in like an apparition and disappeared before the reception.  I’d been seeing her since the fall of 2009—two years before I met Rick, and five years before we exchanged vows. I was peak messiness. I’d been living in Los Angeles for the previous seven years before I decided to move back to my hometown for Matthew, a man I barely knew. The day I made the decision, I was in a Steelers bar tucked away in an LA neighborhood I’d never been to before. I texted Matthew, “If the Steelers win, I’m moving to Pittsburgh.” When the Steelers scored the winning touchdown in the AFC Championship, my fate was sealed. Over the next six months, we texted daily, spoke on the phone after work, and attempted grainy video calls over Skype. But less than two months after the move, he developed an acute allergy to direct communication and withdrew. On the day he unceremoniously canceled a dinner date with his parents via text, my friend’s husband declared a flag on the play. That same evening when he offered to swing by and take me out to dinner as an apology, he chose a local hot dog joint even though I was dressed like I was going to church. I came to my senses when he went on vacation and made no contact for two weeks. I broke it off in a two-page email and never spoke to him again. This chain of events was no surprise to Hannah. I had her at “we’d gone out twice.”  My first session took place on a dreary, overcast day in October. I slumped in her upright chair and declared myself an idiot.  “Promise me one thing. If you start dating someone again, will you let me know?”  I nodded with resignation. I wanted to do this on my own—the way I’d always done, with self-help articles, romantic comedies, and getting advice from friends whose dating history was equally questionable.  “You need to get more information.” For someone like me who obsessed over true crime dramas and 30-minute docuseries about bamboozled women, I believed that I was in fact an expert on getting more information. I had no wealth for Matthew to con me out of, he didn’t have a prison record, and he wasn’t married. He was a loner, but not a serial killer. Comments left by women on his Facebook page were appropriate and familial. As far as I was concerned, I’d done my due diligence. Plus, he lived in the house next door to my friend’s childhood home. Wasn’t that a sign? A serendipitous opening to the romcom of my life? Over the next five years, Hannah would have to rewrite my definition of love. The love I longed for was an unrestrained, soulful ballad on full blast, a kaleidoscope of butterflies flapping in your gut so hard you had to puke, a 100-year-old wooden rollercoaster that jumped off the tracks, an undertow that gripped your feet and propelled you in a backflip before spitting you up on shore. Love was supposed to hurt before it filled you with all-encompassing ecstasy. Love was supposed to be loud.  My love delusion began in preschool. I was four years old when I got my first taste of unrequited love. His name was Shawn. A pudgy light-skinned boy with big brown eyes and a tight round afro. My best friend, Priya, was already matched in a reciprocal love affair with Shawn’s best friend, so it seemed natural for us to be star-crossed lovers. When the school day began, all the children filed into a small, carpeted area and formed a circle for our morning devotion. Each day, I stood beside Shawn and cupped his hand as we recited the Lord’s Prayer. With our eyes closed, Shawn crushed my fingers until the center of my palm turned dark pink and dug his thumbnail into the back of my hand until it made a deep half-moon impression. Sometimes he broke the skin, but I didn’t let go until we said, “Amen.” I’ve never been one for reading signs, or, in this case seeing the obvious. Love hurt every day in my house, but it was always complicated by the image of a well-adjusted family. Too often, my father used his fist to settle arguments with my mom and brother. Then a few days or years later he would counter that cruelty with a trip to Kennywood, a shopping spree, or a two-week syllabus designed to occupy me during spring break. Love was a house of horrors that sometimes cleaned up nice for the yearly Olan Mills family photo.  Once I hit puberty, rejection became more nuanced. I spent hours decoding context clues, half-admissions, and suggestive statements to uncover my target’s true intentions. If Hannah had been my therapist back then she might have told me to stop fooling myself and pay more attention to their actions instead of their riddles.  In middle school, I attended Green Valley Day Camp run by two hippies in Glenshaw, a small suburb outside of Pittsburgh. That’s when I met Jake. He was a freckled 10-year-old with a crew cut. His parents were divorced. During the summer he stayed with his father in Pittsburgh, and in the fall, he returned to his mom in New Jersey. We were instant friends and over the course of three years, we wrote each other monthly letters between September and May. He had a special sign off that I soon adopted: TLA. “It means true love always,” he wrote the first time he used the abbreviation. Every June, I looked forward to his arrival at camp. And every summer, he developed a new and very public crush. First Courtney, then Julianna, and then Amy. I was content with this arrangement, because I figured it had something to do with the fact that interracial couples weren’t in vogue yet. Our last summer together, he held my hand and walked close to me before JP, a fellow camper, walked into the clubhouse.  “You were gonna kiss her!” JP laughed through strings of saliva and a bucktooth grin. “No, I wasn’t,” Jake said.   His denial pummeled me. This was the part where he was supposed to take both my hands, lean in for a kiss, then march outside to announce our union to the rest of the campers.   But none of that happened. Instead, Jake walked out of the clubhouse and pretended the whole thing was a misunderstanding.  On our last day at Green Valley, he handed me a tape with tears in his eyes. Listen to this when you get home, he said. On the tape, he dictated his final correspondence to me. It ended with a song dedication. “I Won’t Forget You” by Poison. Until that moment, I didn’t even know heavy metal ballads existed. We promised to see each other in five years—a random time frame we declared at 13. I knew it was goodbye, but a part of me held out hope that our love was stronger than distance. “You’re a pursuer,” Hannah said to me one day in session.  “What does that mean?” I’d been dating Rick for several months and I was already spiraling from the amount of time we didn’t spend together. This was after telling him that practicing jiu-jitsu five days a week and driving the church van every Sunday until three in the afternoon was too much. I knew something was wrong when I started keeping an imaginary ledger of the time we spent together and apart. If love was a feeling that I’d previously failed at, then surely it had to be quantifiable. If I subtracted sleep and work responsibilities, there were roughly 70 hours of possible couple time but not a single issue of Cosmopolitan magazine boasted an algebraic formula on its cover for calculating how much time was enough time. All I knew was that in the first 10 months of our relationship, I’d only spent three eight-hour days with him, and our average weekly time spent was six hours. But every time I expressed this frustration to Hannah, I justified my needs with what other couples did, namely the ones who morphed into conjoined twins from Friday night through Sunday afternoon.  Hannah ripped out a piece of paper from her yellow legal pad. She drew two stick figures with a line between them. The pursuer stick person stood to the left of the distancer. She pointed to my stick figure and animated it with sloppy “x” marks moving forward. When the pursuer caught up, the distancer moved further away and so on. “You’re too available, she said, “you need to distance yourself.” This was the kind of relationship strategy I hated. I had to temper my desire to be with Rick. My takeaway that day was that I had to pretend to be so into my life, my interests, and passions that Rick’s curiosity would only intensify. The summer I turned 22, my father offered similar wisdom to me in a noisy Steelton, PA pub. We sat at the bar sipping on whiskies and coke as I shared the details of my latest pursuit—a man I’d met in college who moved to the West Coast to be with his high school sweetheart. I imagined that if we stayed friends long enough that he would realize what he was missing in her.  He stared straight ahead like he was contemplating his next drink order and interrupted me. “When a man sees an independent woman, he wines and dines her until she’s dependent. And then he looks for another independent woman.” He took a sip from his rocks glass and looked at me. “Stop chasin’ these fools.”.  The idea of having to restrain any part of my infatuation was excruciating. Like when people tell women that the moment they stop looking for a partner, that’s when the right person walks into their life. Even when I tried to follow this logic, I felt myself looking over my shoulder at a café, a bookstore, a restaurant, a grocery store, at the club dancing—HOW ABOUT NOW? What about right now? Have I demonstrated to the cosmos that I’m ready?  There was no making sense of who I had to be to woo a man. A man I dated in college wrote me love letters every few days, sent me two dozen roses on my birthday, and had a custom belly chain made for me by a silversmith. And this only after a month of dating. But when he felt overwhelmed by my availability, he would say “I need some space.” When I asked for a time frame, he shrugged. But it was always two weeks. When my punishment was over, I would hear his loud muffler pulling into the driveway of my apartment and he would ask me to come back to his dorm with him. I always obliged. I put more stock in his effusive displays than the unpredictability of his moods. I trusted the flair more than his absence.  “Have I talked to you about boundaries?” Hannah inquired one day.  At this point, I’d spent more than a dozen sessions comparing my relationship with Rick to other couples. One couple I knew spent every Sunday doing NYTimes crossword puzzles and reading Moby Dick, but Rick was driving the van. Another couple had brunch every Saturday morning together, while Rick was at jiu-jitsu practice. Another spent every evening together until the sun rose, while Rick dutifully returned to his apartment so that he could prepare a lesson plan or play video games or just settle into the evening. I had a checklist in my mind for what this relationship was supposed to look like from the outside, and my portfolio didn’t seem to measure up. Hannah took this as a no. She pulled a sheet from her yellow legal pad again and drew two columns. In the first row, she drew two circles far apart from each other. “This is estranged.”  In the second row, she drew two circles overlapping each other. “This is enmeshed. This is what you seem to be describing.” In the third row, she drew two circles just barely overlapping their midpoint. “This is what you want. This is what a healthy relationship looks like.” I groaned. This was a more calculated effort than I’d ever put forth in my life.   I had no boundaries. In my 20s and 30s, I made a career of this. I thought men wanted to be needed. When I showed men who I was, it ended in criticism. And instead of taking this as a cue, I shape-shifted into the woman they wanted to be.  The guy I dated after my college graduation was vocal about what he disliked about me. That summer I saved up to purchase a bottle of Evelyn perfume by Crabtree & Evelyn. Its signature note was rose oil.  “You smell like somebody’s grandmother.” That was the point. I chose that scent because it reminded me of the concentrated air freshener that my grandmother picked up at Loblaws once a month.  He didn’t care that it was nostalgic or that my grandparent’s bathroom smelled like roses, and not poop, so I stopped wearing it. He also detested my style. Every weekend, I donned a pair of brown stompers with a black platform rubber heel that my brother purchased for me in the Village when I was 16. The shoe's surface looked like stained wood, and I adored them. One day he told me I looked butch in them and the next day they disappeared. When I inquired about them, he told me that he threw them away. Weeks later, I found them hidden in his trunk and confronted him.  I thought you threw them out.  “I should have,” he said.  He let me reclaim them only if I vowed never to wear them again. I agreed but held out hope that he would fall in with them and me. He preferred heels. He also preferred not to call me his girlfriend.  The men I dated wanted me to be the opposite of me, and I tried desperately to hold their attention despite myself. I was also arrogant and foolish enough to believe that bending to their every whim would coax them into submission.  Rick proposed to me in DC, over dinner at Kruba Thai and Sushi by the navy yard. Everyone except for me knew the day was coming. He’d called my brother and mom days before, and he showed the ring to a few of my closest friends. The restaurant was empty except for us, and another party seated on the opposite side of the dining area. He pulled out a box and in it were earrings.  “Happy anniversary,” he said.  I’d been growing impatient with Rick. We’d been dating for two years and my 40s were closing in. But he wanted everything to be just right. He wanted to know me. He wanted to pay off his student loan debt and find the perfect ring. I told him that none of that mattered, that my clock was ticking, but he still took his time.  “I saw those at the arts festival.” I looked down to see a pair of blue earrings and thanked him with a tight smile. Then he pushed another box forward. “I thought you might like this too.” I opened the box and the light caught the sparkles of a diamond engagement ring with a princess-cut center stone and two smaller diamonds flanking each side. Its detailing was subtle and unique, like me. When I realized it was a proposal, I was so excited I couldn’t eat. We took our dinner to go, and I ran around the navy yard until I was out of breath—Rick jogging just beside me.  When I shared the news of Rick’s proposal with Hannah she asked me what my expectations were in a marriage.  I looked at her like she’d given me more Calculus homework.  In hindsight, my expectations sounded aspirational and half-baked. I wanted the flowers, the unpredictable displays of affection, and everything to be 50/50.  “Love is boring,” she said. She might as well have walked up to a playground of children and told them that Santa Claus burned their letters.   When I finally built up the courage to ask Rick what his expectations were, they sounded nothing like mine.  “I want someone who has their own interests so that we can come together and share our experiences.” I thought that arrangement sounded lonely. It didn’t match the romantic comedy in my head. It sounded like someone who wanted me to keep writing, knitting, wearing comfortable shoes, and decoupaging. It sounded like someone who wanted me to be me. This was a foreign concept. But now that I’d found this rare and imperfect unicorn, I had to start telling him my own wants and needs, not by comparison or through the lens of a friend enmeshed with her Hallmark-trained boyfriend, but by my own assessment. I didn’t even know where to start.  After I spotted Hannah at our wedding ceremony, I took note of every face in the church that day. My smile got wider and wider until I met eyes with Rick. We selected 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7 to be read by my mom at the wedding. The one that details what love is supposed to look, feel, and sound like. It seemed like an appropriate, if not typical bible verse to be read at our wedding. But I don’t think I really understood what was being spoken to us that day.  In 2021 I finally purchased a car of my own after 20 years of taking the bus in cities like Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Pittsburgh where the city design and traffic nearly tripled my commute. I soon discovered how much I loved driving aimlessly blasting music through my speakers. One day I landed on “Tell Him” by Lauryn Hill, a song I’d avoided for nearly as long as I’d been a professional pedestrian. It reminded me too much of old hurt, but I let it play anyway. Instead of damning past decisions, I smiled recalling that the lyrics were based on the same bible passage Rick and I heard on our wedding day. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does boast, it is not proud.  In “Tell Him,” Hill sang “love is not loud.” All these years, I thought loud had to do with avoiding an abusive monster. It never occurred to me that loud might have to do with the kind of performative love I craved. I never gave thought to the idea of love being quiet, predictable, and steady. But as this lesson sunk in, I realized for the first time that love being quiet didn’t mean I needed to be. I needed to turn up the volume and say exactly what I needed and wanted.  ### Torch Literary Arts  is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

Jordan E. Franklin (she/her) hails from Brooklyn, NY. She received her MFA from Stony Brook Southampton and is a doctoral candidate at Binghamton University. She is the author of the poetry collection, when the signals come home  (Switchback Books), and the chapbook, boys in the electric age (Tolsun Books). Her work has appeared in Breadcrumbs, Frontier, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, the Southampton Review and elsewhere. She is the winner of the 2017 James Hearst Poetry Prize and the 2020 Gatewood Prize. 1: poet discusses how she inherited the new world “Ah fear, fear, she's the mother of violence Making me tense to watch the way she breed” - Peter Gabriel Question: How were you able to survive for so long? I come from a long line of folks who kept shotguns  behind their fridge. They couldn’t be shadows  because they were too long, too dark. Love was brief,  left holes in our walls. I could’ve reached  the gun if I tried. My fingers were slim enough, long enough but Dad said I was too little then. Worried about the kickback. He taught me how  to use a gun before I bled. I was born among knives:  me, a C-section spilled onto a hospital bed. Dad kept  them sharp throughout our apartment, tucked away  in drawers, closets. I wasn’t supposed to make it  but he insisted. To truly live, you need to sleep  loaded. Safety off, I can hurt. I can aim,  squeeze the trigger. I can reach your bleeding heart.  ### Torch Literary Arts  is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

Octavia Washington is an emerging writer who graduated from Carleton College with a degree in English and is currently a Dramaturgy MFA student at Columbia University. She lives in New York and can be found shopping until dropping, probably. Follow Octavia on Instagram and Twitter . babybreath   CHARACTERS Angel, a black woman in her 20s The Husband, older than her     Setting: The Bed Time: None in the Void   Angel is lying horizontal on the bed in her pink robe and bonnet, one leg exposed. She keeps rubbing at her temples. Her sheets are undone, unmade, fraying; every second away from her temple goes to its exposed strings. Her husband is sitting in a chair across from her, monitoring for any worrying signs — well, more worrisome than her usual. She’s surrounded by dial-up telephones, receivers as far as the eye can see. Another ring — and no answer. The phones get bigger and smaller all around her; they shrink and balloon, and she follows their lead with her movements.   Angel hears a click after each name. No telling if the husband can hear them too.   Angel Kolin. Kerolle. Kerstein. Khafif. Khan. These are the first instruments of the baby machine. I have to take a nap but I can’t stop thinking and I need you to help me carry my thoughts. Okay, can you do that? I need you to carry my names and then we’ll all find some peace in dreams. Okay, can you promise that? Alright. I have - pass me that. (He passes her the crumbled piece of paper on the floor; she unravels it.) These are my physicians but I don’t think they went to school for medicine. I think they’re fake. Don’t look at me like that. Forget the degrees painting the walls and the pillows that devour and the games in the waiting room and the snotty receptionist at the desk and the fancy Ivy Leagues of it all. They majored and degreed in Baby Killer MD. And now I have something to say. I stand and shout (Angel tries to stand up but falls back down) , I sit and shout: I have something to say. I have -- what was I -- I’m sorry, I’m not -- oh, Kolin.   That was the first stop. All aboard the abortion express. Sorry. That’s not funny, I know you don’t like when I make, when I make light of things like — dark things. I just meant that he was my pediatrician and that’s why I saw him first. Kolin’s hair went like (she gestures)  whoosh; he had the quaff, baby, the quaff, okay, it was the 90s. He found me in the waiting room playing with the piano rug, the long one with all the keys, you ever seen those shits? No? Well, I was brushing my foot over  c  and humming something so loud that I didn’t hear him and he had to tap me twice with his ghost hands because he’s known me since I was small enough to have to put my whole body on c  to get it to play.   And when I took off my pretty dress from Puerto Rico and sucked my butt into a paper gown, he waved some blurry black photos of my insides and said, do you know what this means, my Angel? And I said, please don’t tell Daddy, because I already had three hot messages from him in my voicemail that I hadn’t listened to but they went something like, I’ll pay for it, blah, just like your mother, blah, hardheaded, blah. And he said we have to tell Daddy. And I said, nuh-uh. And he said, uh-huh. And we went like that back and forth and I guess the stress got to be so much that something in my stomach suckered in,  (hold breath) spun,  (exhale)  and whirled into a vacuum.  (Spit)   And that’s one down. You can find them at siete-uno-ocho cuatro-tres-cuatro y dos-nueve-nueve-dos. See, I don’t even need the paper. I’m smart. Your baby is smart. I memorize all their names because time freed me. And now I have space for lullaby.   Here are the - I - can I talk? Can I talk? Thank you.   Angel lies flat on the bed, spreading her arms and legs so that she’s in a snow angel position.   Here are the weapons they used to destroy me: Kolin. Kerolle. Kerstein. Khafif. Khan. Khasidy. Kamin. Kamal. Kassof. Kaminski. Kaiser. Joseph. Julien. Jofe. Jack. I remember Joseph best! I remember that bitch. I remember Joseph with the green Jordans. I remember because I went, damn, you got it like that? Not mister uptighty bitey tidey-whitey whitey who won’t make eye contact when he puts his instruments in me got some Jays? I asked about them when he was putting his cold stethoscope on my teta, just because I got his number from this white lady in my building, the one with that badass kid — oh, you know her, Jacqueline! How is she? Oh, yeah, yeah, he didn’t say nothing. He shrugged then parted my knees with the gloves. I was trying to get to know him, you know, because I had never met him, and I like to know people before they look in my hoo-ha and put rubber on my panties because I am a classy lady, alright, I was raised alright. But he didn’t want to be known I guess. I guess in his program they tell him the patient is just a chart and a number and a birthday and a history of smoking and cancer in the family. He didn’t talk to me one bit, except to tell me that he noticed some bleeding when he parted me, and that he was very sorry, but he didn’t hear a heartbeat.   You can find him at siete-uno-ocho seis-tres-tres y uno-uno-cuatro-dos. Afterward, I went around to everyone I could find. I grabbed people’s jackets on the train. I yelled on the bus. I yelled so much the bus driver said can someone shut that miss up? But no, no one can stop me when I start hurricaning.   I said, do you need a doctor? Preferably better than him? This is where you can find them: Kolin. Kerolle. Kerstein. Khafif. Khan. Khasidy. Kamin. Kamal. Kassof. Kaminski. Kaiser. Joseph. Julien. Jofe. Jordan. Jefferson. James. Jerome. Jayasundera. Jean-Pascal. Jean-Brice. Jean-Noel. Jean-Pierre. Jean-whatever. So many men and they all rot of babybreath. (Getting up)  I am thirsty. I want water. Your baby wants water!   Husband runs out of the room. We can hear water being poured off-stage. He comes back, helping Angel sip her water.   I’m sorry for yelling. I just get upset when I think about Joseph. The way he was looking at me, you know? Like I was procedure, not person. But if he knew me, if he really opened his ears and consumed me, I’d have her. I’d have a baby. We’d - I’m sorry. I know you like me to speak for myself. From now on we’ll say Jo-shush. Can you repeat after me, Jo-shush? You good? Good.   Listen, will you listen? (sung mostly to herself) Kolin. Kerolle. Kerstein. Khafif. Khan. Khasidy. Kamin. Kamal. Kassof. Kaminski. Kaiser. Jo-shush. Julien. Jofe. Jordan. Jefferson. James. Jerome. Jayasundera. Jean-Pascal. Jean-Brice. Jean-Noel. Jean-Pierre. Jean-whatever. Issac. Ibsen. Inna. Now this one’s gonna get you mad. Issac. I only know his name because I looked for him in the thing that’s online? Yes, you can -- yes, you can! You can look people up by their inmate number and that’s what I did. After. Not before. I know you don’t like it when I get all feelings first. When -- what was it you said? When I move with my anxiety, not my logic. And this was one of those times where I was holding my anxiety but I was desperate. You’d get desperate too, okay, if every path kept taking you to the grave instead of to heaven.   So what had happened was I traveled down the yellow brick road and down a gray alley where there was a woman sitting with her dog in her lap and she was looking at me and I was looking at her because she kinda looked like Tia Flores, a little if I squinted and tilted, just like her with a little more dirt under her nails. And I asked her if she knew which way Gravesend was and she said, why the hell do you wanna go over there, that’s where people get ganged and banged and I said, I’m a hero, I’m saving my new baby, and there’s a man there who will protect her and me from demons and doubters who are forged in the fire of exacting supremacy. Yeah, I see you shaking your head but that’s what I said, okay, I said that shit, because that’s what I thought and I say what I think, always, because I don’t believe in doublespeech like you men of gun, I believe in the truth, the truth is what brings you closer to God, the truth is what keeps the devil at bay, the truth is free. But anyway, I said that and she pointed down to the left, to the left so I followed the yellow brick road and found a gray apartment door on the corner of Avenue D. I knocked. He answered. He had one gold tooth and I thought, man, this really is a private, private, private practice. He said I should leave on my shoes and I immediately got a bad feeling because what type of home doesn’t have you take off your shoes? A bad one, that’s what. He gestured that I should sit in the makeshift living room turned lab turned armchair turned stir-ups and under the flickering lights he put his scalpel on my thigh and said, so you need to get rid of this one? And I said NO. The opposite. He asked me if I was sure. I said YES. He kept shaking his heads and I mean heads because at this point the chlorine -- he had just cleaned before I got there, right -- was getting up in my nose and into my brain. He said I was too pretty and too young to be ruining my life. I didn’t respond because I was getting bothered. The gold, the light, the gray. Instead, I snapped my knees together and stood. And he was like, you still have to pay! And I said MY CURRENCY IS MY FOOT and kicked him in the balls like Tio Rod told me to do when people started looking at me funny. And he screamed YOU BITCH and I ran and ran and ran and I started flying and dropped the latest baby on the way down the street, past the lady, past the trash, past the construction guys who said why you running ma, past the cops who gave me the good ole red and blue and said SLOW DOWN, but then they took pity on me because I was crying so hard that it turned into burps and I looked like the black one’s little sister. Snot and all.   (Beat)   See, I knew you wouldn’t like that story. But that’s what happened. Deadass, that’s what happened.    Can you call my mom? You don’t have your mother-in-law programmed into your fancy little gadget? It’s siete-uno-ocho tres-ocho-dos y cero-cinco-cero-cero. I know we’re not talking right now but I would really like to listen to her breathe. Can you --? Gimme me. Thank you.   Husband hands over his cell phone. As the phone rings, the receivers around her stop breathing — or stop moving so much, whatever’s easier. Angel makes a call. No answer.   (To the voicemail) Hi, Mommy. It’s your Angel. I have a secret: (quiet) Kolin. Kerolle. Kerstein. Khafif. Khan. Khasidy. Kamin. Kamal. Kassof. Kaminski. Kaiser. Jo-shush. Julien. Jofe. Jordan. Jefferson. James. Jerome. Jayasundera. Jean-pascal. Jean-Brice. Jean-Noel. Jean-Pierre. Jean-whatever. Issac. Ibsen. Inna. Irwin. Iwanicki. Ingber. Ingberman. Igor. IIina-Yelena.   Wait, stop talking. I hear something.   Pause as they look around. Then comes swelling, sweet music. It sounds a little like an aria but of many rhythmic, popping voices. It’s clear to Angel that it’s her babies singing.   My parasites came to visit. They sound so good! You can’t hear them? Stop this bullshit: you hear them!   Angel gets up and spins herself. A lovely, if clumsy, pivot.   They’re getting hungry. They need something to eat. Do you have anything? Give me something! No, not that! Watch me:  (Angel does a fast step routine)  Kolin. Kerolle. Kerstein. Khafif. Khan. Khasidy. Kamin. Kamal. Kassof. Kaminski. Kaiser. Jo-shush. Julien. Jofe. Jordan. Jefferson. James. Jerome. Jayasundera. Jean-pascal. Jean-Brice. Jean-Noel. Jean-Pierre. Jean-whatever. Issac. Ibsen. Inna. Irwin. Iwanicki. Ingber. Ingberman. Igor. IIina-Yelena. Henry. Hollander. Horne. Hope. Are you full yet?   (Abruptly stops dancing) Maybe she changed her number. She moves around a lot, you know, I was just trying the kitchen phone. Do this one: Siete-uno-ocho siete-cuatro-tres y cero-cuatro-seis-cuatro.   No? Nothing?   That’s okay. I have one last story for you. Although you were there for this one. So it’s not a story, I guess, for you, it’s a memory. You like Henry. I like Henry. He’s not a whoosh, or a Jay, or a gold tooth. He’s a cackle. Literally. He’s more laugh than person. What! It’s not an insult! He goes (she does his laugh) . It’s trustworthy. A man who cackles is not a man who lies. And he’s brown and he’s pink inside and he’s purple on the outside. That’s a person you can trust. You can trust a cackle. It’s not his fault his attendant -- okay, you’re getting upset. I thought the song would cheer you up. No, don’t cry. You don’t see me crying. This one was almost full-term. I should cry. I stink. I smell like babybreath.   I was getting a bagel that day when I felt it. This quick suck. Quicksand in my belly. I begged the guy at the bodega to call the Mr, tell him to meet me at Bellevue, okay, tell him I’m going to Bellevue. And I closed my eyes and willed myself down 1st Ave. When I transported to the receptionist desk, I said, I’m hurt. And the attendant was passing by on his lunch, yes, the old white one, and he said, no, he whispered because I wasn’t supposed to hear, he whispered, can it hold for my cholecystectomy? And the nurse nodded and then put her needle nails in my arm and said hurt how? But she wasn’t looking at me, you know, her eyes were around and about. And I said I’m hurt ing  now, right now, it’s hurt ing , because that’s the only way to get them to take you seriously. She said sit down, the doctor will be with you soon, and I said, I need Dr. Henry now! Give him to me, give me to him, whatever, but it needs to happen now, right fucking now or I’m gonna explode, there’s a bomb in my chest. And she said, ma’am, that’s a serious accusation, if that’s true we will need to call the police and I said, call the fucking police call the governor call the SWAT team call the FBI call motherfucking Batman you dumb bitch if you don’t get me Kolin Kerolle Kerstein Khafif Khan Khasidy Kamin Kamal Kassof Kaminski Kaiser Jo-shush Julien Jofe Jordan Jefferson James Jerome Jayasundera Jean-pascal Jean-Brice Jean-Noel Jean-Pierre Jean-whatever Issac Isben Inna Irwin Iwanicki Ingber Ingberman Igor IIina-Yelena Henry Hollander Horne Hope Hassan Hausknecht Halper Handler George Gary or Goldstein I will kill you. And then you arrived, wrenching yourself out of a cab. And when I saw you I knew. My insides broke in the lobby and I just knew. It wasn’t Henry’s fault. It’s not your fault.   That’s why I’m telling you right now that I’m not seeing another doctor. Not even if it’s a woman. Not even if it’s light itself. I’m not leaving my bed. You can call them right now. Go ahead. I don’t care if it’s Fred or Fong or Feurman or Flores or Fuchs or Friedman or Ferzli or Fazio or Feldman or Fairwa or Frenkel or Francois or Epstein or Erber or Empire. And when you call Siete-uno-ocho seis-tres-tres y ocho-uno-ocho-tres, tell them my wife and my kids said, I banish you!   No one believes me. No one ever believes me. No, you don’t. No, YOU DON’T! I don’t like to be told who I am and what I am and what compels me and what magic makes me! I’m not a liar! I had all those babies and they ate each other up in my womb and they ate me up, and now I’m not going outside anymore. I’m going to lay here for the next forty-eight hours, or days, or months, or years. No, I want to get up. No, I want to sit. Fuck you! I don’t know!   Angel stands but she bumps into too many things. She trips over one of the phones and ends up on the ground. She vomits into the waste bin. Not real vomit, of course. She’s puking out all of the names; it’s a strange, glittery occurrence. Her husband stands behind her and holds her head. When she’s done he smoothes her edges and holds her.   Sorry for yelling. I believe in the sun, you know? I salute the sun. I cast a hex on all those naughty men. I reach into the void and pull out a wand and I curse them for financial ruin, for emotional instability, for a toilet that never flushes, for a washer that always stains, for a drain that always clogs, for shoelaces inevitably untied, for sickness do we part, for hell and beyond.   Thank you for understanding. Sorry for yelling. And these are the names of all my babies: Daisy, Dagney, Daphne, Diana, Dorothy, Destiny, Desi, Dali, Dayo. Chantel, Charmaine, Candy, Catherine, Catalina, Carolina, Caprice, Camila, Cristina. Bella, Belcalse, Bethany, Bianca, Blanca, Brianna, Belinda, Brandy, Birdie. And I’m their only angel.   Angel sighs then stops talking. The Husband shakes her but she doesn’t stir. It seems she’s fallen asleep in his arms. ### Torch Literary Arts  is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, retreats, and special events. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

Sapphire is the award-winning author of Push , which was adapted into the Oscar-winning film Precious. Sapphire has received numerous awards and recognition including the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction; the Black Caucus of the American Library Association’s First Novelist Award; and in Great Britain, the Mind Book of the Year Award. Sapphire is the author of Push , American Dreams , The Kid , and Black Wings & Blind Angels . Push: A Novel , won the Book-of-the-Month Club’s Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction; the Black Caucus of the American Library Association’s First Novelist Award; and in Great Britain, the Mind Book of the Year Award. Named by the Village Voice and Time Out New York as one of the top ten books of 1996, Push was nominated for a NAACP Image Award in the category of Outstanding Literary Work of Fiction. Push was adapted into the Oscar-winning film, Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire .  Sapphire’s work has appeared in The New Yorker , The New York Times Magazine , The New York Times Book Review , The Black Scholar , Spin , and Bomb . In February of 2007 Arizona State University presented PUSHing Boundaries, PUSHing Art: A Symposium on the Works of Sapphire . Sapphire’s work has been translated into over 18 languages and has been adapted for stage in the United States and Europe.  The Harlem Trilogy (excerpt)   Mississippi 1910 Pt 1   The House of Satin Madam Satin’s last paramour, Mr. McKenzie, had fallen blind in love with her. It happens. Not as often as one likes, but it happens. He was the last of a string of lovers, johns, and pimps whom she had extricated herself from. The man before Mr. McKenzie who, she wasn’t sure, but knew it was possible, that he could have been Flossie’s father had come after her with a violence. Heavily pregnant but nowhere near ready to drop by her own calculations, Madam Satin, nee Mary Ann Cassidy, had gone to a shabby clip joint where she used to work, dropping in on friends to pass a bottle and partake of gossip. She had gone into labor grasping a bottle of stout, laughing convulsively upon hearing that Jane Murray had dodged the cops by dressing as a man. Only to be picked up on another corner by coppers who weren’t looking for her, ‘for appearing in public in men’s clothing. Jane was fined $10 for this, which is more than she would have been fined for hooking. Mary Ann’s guffaws had turned into howls and her convulsive laughter into contractions as she went into labor clutching her bottle of stout. Mary Ann’s hand was extended as she was being carried to a side room with a bed. A girl coming down the hall took the bottle out of Mary Ann’s hand, turned it up and drained it. The girl who hadn’t been invited to partake in the jollities in the dusty parlor narrowed her eyes and scrutinized Mary Ann’s red and contorted face dripping with sweat, tried to remember what she knew about this woman, and when the Aha! ping of recognition sounded, she ran down the hall, out of the door, down the street and down another street and didn’t stop until she ran straight into the man they called Emerald Isle, the notorious pimp and gambler (known to his mother as Francis Michael Gallagher). Mary Ann had run off from this man some months before taking his diamond cufflinks with her when she went. And for five dollars the breathless acquaintance informed the infamous Mr. Emerald Isle she would be happy to tell him where he could find Mary Ann Cassidy. Mr. Emerald Isle picked her up by the scruff of her neck demonstrating to her what he saw as her stray cat status in life and informed her that she would tell him where Mary Ann Cassidy was five dollars or not. She merely answered, “Times a wastin’ Mr. Emerald.” He responded by throwing her to the ground and then throwing two dollars on top of her. Mary Ann had recognized the loud footfall and loud voice of Mr. Emerald Isle as he walked into the house and had wrapped her newborn in a pus and piss-stained pillow case, climbed out the first-floor window of the shabby and nameless whorehouse with her daughter, and made her way as best she could down the same street she had come to the Convent of the Holy Mother where her cousin was a novice. Madam Satin had asked the nuns to keep her baby girl until she could sort out her life. She was walking down the street from the convent where she had left her child who, the myth-making creature that she was, she referred to as her only child. What that meant was, she chose to forget having been forced to leave one infant on a trash heap, and years later having sold another child with no regret other than that she should have driven a harder bargain. She decided walking down the street that this last one was her first one and that she would keep it. She was twenty-nine and gifted with looks that had people thinking she was seventeen. Yes, this child would be her last child. Tears of rage and woe streamed down her alabaster face and she stumbled as she walked down the street fantasizing about killing her pimp. She was determined she would get her child back from the nuns and raise the baby herself if she had to run away or live in hiding in the convent to do it. The international financier capitalist Mr. Mackenzie who had been out tippling spied her from the window of his carriage and saw the woe but not the rage, and asked his coachman to slow down to see if he might be of assistance to, what appeared on first glance and second glance too, a young golden-haired girl walking and crying with every step she took. Madam Satin, née Mary Ann Cassidy, an experienced raconteur and street diviner, realized that the man who introduced himself as Mr. Mackenzie was really and truly an angel, and asked God as she knew her, as she had been introduced to her in stank dank basements and alleys by witches, colored Creole women, and Catholic girls who had gone rogue, to Guide her tongue/ Treoir Mo Tongu!  She could see her perfusion of golden curls and tears had further besotted a man already well along the path to alcoholic stupor. She spoke slowly refusing a brandy and water that would ‘comfort her’ and chose her words carefully because there was a possibility he would remember them, and so that she should not forget what she said, aware his coachman might be straining to listen to every word she said. Mary Ann Cassidy’s life had been one of fluid invention since her mother, an impoverished woman from Dublin, had left with her sister to seek their fortunes in London. They had landed in a London jail and been scraped out of it and transported to America years ago. Both women had had the good sense to eschew forever and always all things English and Protestant and to seek blessing and sanctuary in the true church of the virgin mother, l’église catholique romaine. Mr. Mackenzie listened to the fair and lovely girl who said she had been turned out of her stepfather’s house when she spurned his advances and had been walking down the street to find the river’s edge and would have walked into it had he not stopped his carriage and saved her. When she drew away from her eyes the handkerchief he had given her and raised those reddened orbs to his, he was impressed by their pale Alpine blue. He pressed some bills in her hand and dropped her off at the Hotel Carmine and told her who to ask for to get a room. And that he hoped he would see her there in two hours when he had finished his morning endeavors. He hoped she would have the forbearance to wait for him, but he understood if she could not and decided to return home, either way the money was hers to keep as he hated to see someone in distress that could so easily be remedied, and not remedy it. He was an old man and fell in love with her in the way that old men do who intend to spite relatives they know have never loved them for anything but their money. He told her he loved her over morsels of tender beef and later ruby-throated hummingbird cake and Bridgetown rum. After a second glass of rum, he told her that he wanted to marry her. Mary Ann Cassidy was rather cool-headed for a woman who had had to drop a newborn that she had given birth to at seven o’clock that morning at a convent. She repeated that she had rescued herself from her stepfather’s house, why she knew, but for what she wasn’t sure. Mary Ann Cassidy was 29, not 17. She knew she did not want to be hanging around waiting for some old man to die, an old man whose relatives would be hovering over his soon-to-be corpse like buzzards. She was clear when she told him, “Give what you would give me now . My mother suffers already this very day that I am not there to take care of the house and children while she goes out door to door with a bucket and brush to scrub the marble steps of the rich.” A third glass of rum and the two were in bed beneath an embroidered coverlet. Her pain and the postpartum blood she left on the sheets were to the drunk man the crying blonde girl’s unasked for proof of virginity. Even her cousin, who has since learned not to doubt the woman now called Madam Satin Fontaine was shocked when Mary Ann Cassidy who had said she would be returning with provisions for her daughter (they all said that), was back the next day with five hundred dollars for the Convent of the Blessed Virgins and her blonde-haired child. She was going away on business for two months after which she would be back to have her baby baptized and then take her home. She would be back in the wink of an eye/ en un clin d’œil . Please sing to the infant in French. Mary Ann Cassidy left the United States with Mr. McKensie thinking she might find a way off the street, maybe enter an established house where she could make a lot of money. What could she do with a lot of money? Buy a house of her own? Such big thoughts. Her mind which had never been really geared toward imagination made a subtle shift from invention to imagination. A house. I want my own house. What night bird did not want her own house, to be her own woman one day? Although some of the simpler ones just wanted to be married and be taken away from ‘all this’. And what was all this? Mary Ann snorted! More in one day than shop girls got in a week (and those little duckies ended up having to give it away to the boss man or the shop steward to get the goddamned check that they had run their respectable feet off for all week!) And then there were the girls who just wanted oblivion—a pipe or a bottle. But most girls were ambitious, Mary Ann thought. Ah, but few had the view or means to achieve if they did have vision. So, visions, dreams, and desires were given short shrift. But that night with the old man Mary Ann Cassidy’s vision was if not born, resurrected. Her first plan, not enough had transpired for it to be so; but the old fellow wouldn’t have known that, was to track him down and ensnare him a few months hence as the father of her child. But no that would be so clumsy, she thought. But better than she could have planned would be revealed over breakfast. The fool wanted to marry her now . He believed her! When would that happen again? The man who thought the tearful girl’s pain and effluvium following childbirth were the blood of a virgin whose maidenhead had been pierced by his propulsive penetrations was a new beginning for Mary Ann Cassidy. She realized that she had now begun a new chapter of her life and that it would begin with a rewriting of the first chapter. This was no problem as she was creative. He told her he had a business trip and he wanted her to accompany him to the continent. Later she would ask someone where that was. At the time she just nodded. He gave her money, more money than she had ever seen, to purchase a wardrobe. He mentioned a couple of shops she had only stood outside of before. She took a phaeton straight away to the convent and gave half the money to her cousin. Her cousin burst into tears and clutched her neck as she kissed her. They were both rebuked. Her cousin put her green agate cross around her neck. The Mother Superior rebuked again but looked away because the bit of her that was sentimental was touched despite her hard position at the top by this young woman with enough iron in her spine to claw her way up. The convent was not an orphanage per se. The sisters allowed girls of many different circumstances to leave children for three months, after which the children were then sent off to orphanages. The girls are told at the time they leave their children that the nuns kept no records and that they would send the children off and into good hands, but that they did not keep track of whether those good hands were from Baton Rouge, Detroit, or Saskatchewan. The nuns would wait ninety days. The girls promised. Perhaps they had intended to, but few came back. Looking at Mary Ann Cassidy’s fine head of golden curls and small eyes like frozen blue water the nuns did not think looking at her the first time she would be back. When she came back eighty-five days later she had learned a language. In the time they had been gone the old man, Mr. Mackenzie, had only fallen deeper in love with the blonde and would not be disabused by comments muttered in low voices, by old acquaintances he would not call friends, who offered warnings about her, he coolly withdrew himself and his paying-for-the-next-round-of-drinks largess. He watched her win at the gambling table one night. It was the beginner’s luck big win that the house orchestrates to draw the new gambler in and begin the cycle of win-lose win-lose that ends with them losing if not everything close to everything. He watched Mary Ann Cassidy swoop upon her chips like a hawk grabbing a chicken’s neck and walk away from the table. Mr. Mackenzie was impressed with this stolid good sense and decided to reward it. Observing her listen over the course of three months to the language spoken around the resort, he heard her pieced-together patois of street French transform into the language that was spoken in the casino and at the track—French. “Tell me about yourself,” he said watching her watch everything as if she was one of those newfangled movie camera machines recording everything. Busy watching the waiter as he set a platter of raw oysters in the shell on the table, she didn’t answer. She watched how Mr. Mackenzie used a little fork, not his fingers and tongue as she was used to doing at the tavern. She had nothing to tell him she thought as she shook out a napkin and observed how he handled his cutlery. “Me?” she said finally, “there is not much to tell. I don’t like talking about myself. It's unladylike.” Despite her intention not to she had forgotten some of what she told him on the street after getting in his carriage. The old guy had been drunk, but not that drunk. Mr. Mackenzie nodded at the waiter to fill Mary Ann Cassidy’s glass. She demurred. An old pimp had told her, Never drink as much or more than your mark ‘less you end up a mark yourself! “Well, my father was a French Creole and my mother the same. My father sent us all to school where we learned proper French, it’s coming back to me hearing it here. But we was kids and clung to our patois at home and spoke English in the street. My mother died and my father took another wife and she straight away wanted me to take care of her kids, she brought two to the union. My father was a night watchman and was killed in a robbery and my stepmother married again. And there I was, a stepchild to one parent and a step-stepchild to the other parent. It wasn’t long before I was having to fight him off. So, that’s where we run into one another. I couldn’t take no more.” The waiter had reappeared, “And the lady what would you like/ Et la dame qu’est-ce que vous aimeriez? ” “ Je voudrais un café noir, s’il vous plait /I would like a black coffee please,” she replied. “You learn fast,” he said. “Yes, I put myself in  it I guess you could say,” Mary Ann Cassidy said. “Well, I guess that’s all there is to say about me. My mother always said a lady’s got to have some mystery, you know.” She attempted a playfulness she did not feel. “And what about you Mr. Mackenzie?” She listened and heard nothing new. He was a rich man and had not been happy at home. Oh, why did they marry in the first place! The café noir kept her awake. His children didn’t appreciate him, all they wanted was his money. Well, give it to them, she thought! His wife had died after a long illness and he was free to marry again and was struck by her beauty and, despite everything, her character. Character? And what was he doing to it, she sneered, bringing her to these glistening gold gambling casinos and ravishing her nightly. The word that came to Mary Ann’s mind was, sum . He needed to settle a ‘sum’ on her head, she thought as he prattled on about what he owned and how big a man he was. Yes, he must take her to the bank and settle a sum on her head. She would never marry him or anybody else. “May I take this, Madam?” the waiter asked. “Yes,” Mr. Mackenzie answered, “we are satisfied.” 8. On the voyage home he watched her and fell, old man that he was, deeper in love with his creation of a pure girl set upon and wronged by a wicked stepfather. He knew he was sick and had planned for a long time to spite his children. So, they, after she spent a night at the convent where she obtained a birth certificate for herself as well as her daughter, both stamped with Satin Fontaine and signed by the Monsignor. She waited around for an hour for her daughter to be baptized, retrieved a baptismal certificate for her baby, and as long as they were at it she asked, could she have one for herself. She then headed for the bank. If her papers did not seem unusual and like an abundance of fresh ink it was perhaps because they were issued and common in an age of invention. She retrieved her child and installed it with a nursemaid in a hotel and went to the Bank of Mississippi where she met Mr. Mackenzie and announced her presence and her name—Satin Fontaine and her readiness to begin a new life that Mr. Mackenzie could be honored to be a part of it. The bank manager raised his eyebrows but they dropped and he nodded when Mr. Mackenzie took out his checkbook and wallet. Satin agreed to half the sum being in annuities that would begin paying monthly sums immediately, and the rest in cash. She was quite capable of managing her money she assured the bank officer. Mr. Mackenzie agreed. She repaired to the hotel and gave instructions to the maid. She was ready to move on. Mr. Mackenzie returned to New York divested of fully one-third of his fortune. He waited for Mary Ann Cassidy to join him in New York. It was a scene from theater, the kind-hearted gentleman and the blond vision of loveliness in distress. They would play their parts. He had played this role in his past, though it had never cost him as much before. It was a new role for Satin Fontaine nee Mary Ann Cassidy. She flubbed her lines in ways that would have cost a lesser actress her part but being clever she was not recast. She had seen a house, a large house, a house on President Street, in Le Quartier Canard Blanc . She wanted to buy it. Now that she could afford them, she had dreams. She planned. She knew how to work hard. Two weeks after he had gone back North, she took a deep breath and wrote to Mr. Mackenzie and told him, she had changed her plans and decided not to come to New York and marry him. He could reach her at the convent where she was now a novice and to which she had given all her worldly goods upon taking her vows. Mr. Mackenzie was not a fool, but he felt his days were numbered (they actually turned out to be more in number than he had thought), and old though he may have been he was at the top of his game, he set about his business, his fortunes doubled, and he did not smart at the piece of it lost but what did chagrin him was the loss of his cherished role in this bit of theater. Flossie was seven years old when Mr. Mackenzie returned to Blue Gulf Town, Mississippi. His business had brought him to the Mississippi Sound again and for the last time. He knew where to find Mary Ann Cassidy now Madam Satin. When he entered her house he was escorted to the parlor as was par for the course for gentlemen callers of his caliber. He gazed at the six-foot-tall slender black servant who had escorted him to the parlor. She wore gold hoop earrings, a black bustier, see-thru lace brocade black harem pants, a shiny belt made of foreign coins around her waist, and very smart kid-skin boots. He had never seen a get-up quite like that anywhere else. She looked like the sleek gold-collared black panthers he had seen in cheap oil paintings of exotic Eastern harems on whorehouse walls, except she didn’t look cheap or even attainable. “I would like to see Madam Satin,” he said. “I’m sorry,” she answered, “She is busy. I will be happy to attend to you. Tell me what you wish.” “She will see me. Tell her Mr. Mackenzie is here. She should make haste I have a train to catch,” he said. When she heard who awaited her in the parlor, Madam Satin’s first impulse was to throw a veil over her head and run out the backdoor of her own house. But she thought again and sent Maria back to the parlor via the back staircase, and Maria pulled back the deep-purple velvet curtain of the little schoolroom by day and counting house by night, and invited Mr. Mackenzie in. After a financial transaction had been made Maria led him to Madam Satin’s boudoir. What made her know he had come to rescue her again? She took down her chignon and let her luxuriant golden curls fall unrestrained on her shoulders and donned a white silk camisole over a simple white corset that he would unlace with those fingers that trembled to reveal her still high pink-tipped breasts white as driven snow. She eschewed her imported French perfume and dabbed a vanilla-scented mixture Maria had conjured for protection on her wrists. She took off her diamond earrings. Underneath the scent of confectioner’s vanilla was the smell he had never forgotten—the musky stink between her legs mingled with the pong of sweat from under her arms, and her breath that had somehow always smelled like ripe strawberries. It had not changed. He unlaced her stays with firm sober fingers that began to tremble as her form was revealed. He almost wept as he sucked her breasts. She drew him to her and educated whore that she was, she did what she needed to do to help an old man get an erection. And when he heaved inside of her there was no ‘almost’, he did weep. And Madam Satin could see he was not worthy of her shame. She had not wronged him! What were a few lies or a bit of dissembling if a man came back to you, paid for his pleasure, sucked, and swallowed what was between your legs, and wept on your breast? She had not deceived him. No, Madam Satin had not deceived him. And when Mr. Mackenzie left Blue Gulf and caught the train to New Orleans to finish up his business before he returned to New York he left her with gifts, among which was the diamond wedding ring he had bought seven years ago for her. That was twelve years ago. Mr. Mackenzie has since died. And Madam Satin has continued to rise. ### Poem Found in Scientific American    On November 16. 2022 an article In Scientific American , a reputable magazine as magazines go, calls the question that I now put to you my friends: “Who is dying from COVID now, and why” Is something a poem if you have to tell someone it’s a poem? Wouldn’t they know by the end rhyme or the number of beats in the line— ta DAH  ta DAH  ta DAH  ta DAH ta DAH five times across the page It doesn’t sound like: She is gone! The shock of that—one million times She is gone She is gone She is gone— not like a friendship gone bad like it had or money borrowed and not paid back but like gone, like the ship disappearing over the horizon. She is gone. She wrote me some time ago:   Sorry for sending this card so late I have not been in the Holiday spirit at all. I got fired from my job on November, 15 after 16 plus years on the same job So, basically I have to start over again from scratch In this day and age and [at] my age is not easy. They just fired another person last week after 30 years on the job. Every since they merged with this other company they have been getting rid of people in one way or the other FUCK Trump I have something to say about that also   The article asks who? Who? Her, that’s who! While the total number of COVID deaths has fallen, the burden is shift-shifting-shifts even more toward people older than 64… COVID deaths among people age 65 and older more than doubled between April and July this year rising by 125%...Racism and discrimination play an outsize role. Another friend denise h. bell was a poet. She described herself as “a mature published poet”. Her poems, as I interpreted them, shone a light on marginalization, ageism, poverty She had been published in Rattle of which she was duly proud. Had done time at the Board of Ed. Had been accepted to Cave Canem workshop at over the age of 64 that was, we considered, quite an honor. A stunning poem titled remember my name about an older man who has retired and sees himself in the diminished light of one whom society feels has outlived his usefulness. The poem ends with lines hoping his wife puts “a picture on my obituary” so people remember who he was. denise h. bell denise h. bell denise h. bell denise h. bell denise h. bell denise h. bell denise h. bell denise h. bell denise h. bell denise h. bell denise h. bell denise h. bell Gone! Overall, the article says, U.S. life expectancy has dropped significantly significant signify sign— sign of late-stage capitalism—my words Not the article, who questions the hangman until he comes for them— Who thinks he is coming for them What is my crime you cry out   The article says, “ That is unprecedented, ” She’s talking about the drop in life expectancy. And we had so few expectations— To publish a poem, to be remembered on a lover’s lips, fantasy of a new lover’s kiss—Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s old man finds love with a 14-year-old. It happens to old men in novels—mostly old white men w/14-year-olds of either sex. Though there was "Harold and Maude," but look what happened to her!   At the peak of the recent surge in August 2022, 91.9% of all deaths around the country were among people 65 and older—squeezed out workers, ticket punchers, bouncers, beer hall, beach ball Gramps, Ma’Dear, Auntie, Grammie Spinster sitting at the wheel spinning thread The scissors, the hand that snips the thread dragged off her stool and slapped on a stainless steel gurney intubated in the hospital hallway— to be not strong enough to fight for resources all that tax money to Uncle Sam the sanity lost in Vietnam what you did to your kids when you got back from Korea what you saw in WWII when they emptied the camps the leg you left behind in Iraq the student that attacked you at Public School 321— you didn’t deserve that, but you got it. Now you’re on this gurney waiting for a bed you are not welcome in because of Medi- care’s low reimbursement rates. You look at a little plastic machine attached to your finger saying 70, 60, 50— You don’t feel so much, you thought dying would feel different. And then suddenly it does! Grabbing you by the throat you think about your apartment all your things—things you traded your time and life for—watches—the one red Gucci bag— you were scared to carry on the subway. You call out the tube goes in your throat you think Jesus. The article says younger people are still dying at higher rates, I’m reading but I can hear the man’s voice rise in pitch, “Under normal conditions in the U.S. younger people rarely die.” “Black people are dying at higher rates.” He doesn’t know to say it’s been that way since slavery. But he does say, “That’s not even acknowledging American Indians, Alaska Natives and Pacific Islanders…” Whose land Whose land we stand upon— Who were decimated with guns & type- writers banging out cowboy novels: home home on a plane. It’s November 22, 2022, two days before Thanksgiving I’m reading all this. I’ve seen the affable old white guy say on TV, “The pandemic is over.” He grins, his granddaughter fairytales on the White House lawn—so pearl pristine sun- shine and green grass, the top of the chain—   The article says: “We’re still in the middle of this crisis. The most vulnerable will not just be left behind but will be sentenced to death.”   ta DAH ta DAH ta DAH stopped on a dime Nobody wants to hear that end rhyme ta DAH ta DAH ta DAH stopped for a dime.   THE INTERVIEW This interview was conducted between Jae Nichelle and Sapphire on January 2, 2024. From Push  to The Kid to these excerpts from The Harlem Trilogy , your body of work has shown a remarkable evolution in style and narrative. How do you see your writing style and storytelling approach evolving over the years? Are there specific influences, experiences, or literary movements that have shaped your journey as an author?   As the stories I wanted to tell over the years differed and changed, my style also evolved and changed. What I needed was different for The Kid  than what I needed for Push.  Push is written in an intimate first person in the voice of a girl with limited education. She’s sixteen when the novel starts and eighteen when it ends. There’s an earnestness and purity to this character. That was deliberate, AIDS was highly stigmatized at the time (still is to some degree). In personal ads, folks would say things like, “I’m clean,” when they were discussing their HIV-negative status. She’s a highly “reliable narrator”. Abdul in The Kid  is not. He’s a tormented soul who at times lies to himself. His ability to love himself and the world is called into question. Unlike his mother, he’s highly literate and worldly. Both novels deal with the effects of intergenerational violence, racism, homophobia, art, literacy, and class. Both novels are told in the first person, so we see the world through the character’s eyes. But they’re very different. The question for me as a writer is, what will serve the story, what conceit, technique, device, etc. will bring this story into being? I think that is where “style” should emanate from, what will serve the text. With The Harlem Trilogy,  I am telling an intergenerational story that begins in 1910 and takes the reader up to a few years past the Obama presidency. I had to use different storytelling techniques, but the question remained the same, what will serve the text? When I think of primary influences on me as a young writer I think of Ntozake Shangé. I was studying dance with Raymond Sawyer and Ed Mock in San Francisco. One of the dancers in Raymond’s company was Ntozake Shangé. She was beginning to create the work that would make her famous, for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuff . I would watch her artistic collaborations with choreographers like Raymond Sawyer, Paula Moss, Halifu Osumare and poets like Jessica Hagedorn, and various jazz musicians. I was mesmerized. This had a profound effect on my developing artistic sensibilities. I was in California, they went to New York. So, it was obvious New York was the place to be. In New York, I discovered people like Pedro Pietri, Miguel Algarin, Dael Orlandersmith, Bob Holman, the Pussy Poets, Carl Hancock Rux, Janice Erlbaum, Patricia Smith, June Jordan, Sandra Maria Esteves, Sarah Jones, Paul Beatty—the whole movement that was the Nuyorican Poets Café. In 1994 my work was included in Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café . Pedro Pietri, June Jordan, and Ai remain foundational poets for me. Speaking of spoken word, in 2010 I recorded June Jordan’s novel, His Own Where , for Audible audiobook. It was such a thrill to do that for a work and a person I admired.   In “Poem Found in Scientific American,” I had to pause and take in the question “Is something a poem if you have to tell someone it’s a poem?” The piece itself is such an intricate collaboration of news, voices, and eulogy. What role has your poetry played for you in difficult times and political moments?   With a piece like “Poem Found in Scientific American” the methodologies of visual artists like Betye Saar who uses assemblage, Romare Bearden the master collagist, and Rosie Lee Thomkins the quilt maker guide me. And as the title of the poem reflects found poetry is important to the working of this poem. Found Poetry can be defined as: “A borrowed text, a piece of writing that takes an existing text and presents it as a poem. Something that was never intended to be a poem—a newspaper article, a street sign, a letter, a scrap of conversation—is refashioned as a poem, often through lineation…”. That’s from A Poet’s Glossary  by Edward Hirsch. The other word that comes to mind is collage, which etymologically stems from French, gluing, from coller to glue…” Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged . The first time I remember using this type of collage form, i.e., mixing documents and poetry was when my brother had been murdered. I had asked his ex-girlfriend to send me the documents she had concerning his death, the death certificate, etc. Time passed; I forgot about the request. Some months later I got an 8 by 11 manilla envelope in the mail. I opened it not knowing what it was or who it was from. The envelope contained my brother’s birth certificate, his death certificate, and his autopsy report. You know, information, data, the reductive facts. The facts often tell their own story, for example, as I write this, 8,000 children have been killed in Gaza by Israeli bombs and the IDF fighting forces. Those are the facts. Now juxtapose those facts with a clip of a denying obfuscating Israeli government official saying, “We don’t know who  killed those children”, and then maybe show a picture of a Palestinian mother preparing her child for a funeral by enshrouding them in these pristine white sheets we see on the news. By ‘collaging’ all this we tell another story. We do this now ,   so our story exists, at least for us, as a contradiction to the official narrative. Which in the case of Israel and the United States is that Israel is trying to irradicate Hamas. We begin to see through snips of data, a leaked government memo that calls the current moment an “OPPORTUNITY” to move the Palestinians out of Gaza, we juxtapose that with a real estate company offering Israeli Jews seaside property in Gaza. By employing the artistic methodology of the African American quiltmaker, we get a different story. Taking broken and shattered pieces of existence and pasting or stitching them together into a coherent text through the act of collage or assemblage allows my brain to make an explanatory and perhaps healing work of art. Romare Bearden worked in a lot of mediums but it was his work as a collagist that really, like that of the African American women quilt makers, had a profound effect on me. So “collage” or “assemblage” is an opportunity to take our shattered selves and make them whole. The following is an excerpt from the poem AUTOPSY REPORT 86-13504 published in 1994. I used official documents, poetry, and personal correspondence: 3.    Autopsy Report 86–13504 From the anatomic findings and pertinent history I ascribe death to craniocerebral injuries Los Angeles, Ca. October 14, 1986, @ 1230 hours subcutaneous subgaleal subdural cerebral cerebellar extensive skull fractures the body is that of a well-developed black male 74 inches in length tall weighing 179 pounds appearing the stated 38 years of age 37! he was 37! the hair is long measuring 6 inches in length in an afro style. there is also a moustache & slight beard growththe sclerae are white & the irises are brown. nose shows blood the left ear contains blood & fly eggs. the mouth shows fly eggs on the hard palate the teeth appear to be intact thorax symmetrical configuration normal abdomen flat you extremities show no were clubbing, edema or deformity beautiful   4 . …extensive Head and Nervous System damage soul contorted locked up busted penitentiary you said it was fuck or be fucked. said they let you out with a string attached to your ass to pull you back if you breathe wrong.   5.     Dear Sapphire, I sent a letter up to the other address explaining the times and change of life. Since the happenings of the last letter things look better being that I remember where I was a year ago (in jail). Also walking down Sunset to get my last check from the big ‘Z’ I happen to look behind me and see this sister and white boy walking together. She looked as if she didn’t want to be bothered, so I gave her the high sign and she ducked into a phone booth and I into a store. She came out and we started walking down the street arm and arm exchanging words no names yet. She told me she had a friend around the corner with some jam, so we walked by and got Hi. Found out later she is S— S— of Earth, Wind and Fire. Spent last night at her apartment on Sunset. Saph, for the record I have never been so Hi! In my life and awake to remember it: wine, coke, hash and opium. Yes, once again I am in love chasing the happiness (so called) that we all chase. Other than that money is getting funny. Power to Us Lord Lofton   There are themes of trauma, violence, and uncovering complex identities in your work. How do you take care of yourself while writing? Community! For years I attended a meeting of women who had survived sexual abuse. I stopped going for various reasons. But during the pandemic, I joined a Zoom support group. That was incredibly important for me. I also regularly see a therapist. That has worked for me. When I lived in Manhattan there was a church, St Francis Assisi on 31st St, that had student therapists you could see for thirty to thirty-five dollars a session. We need more avenues to access therapy even if you don’t have money or private insurance. Of course, the real solution is MEDICARE FOR ALL, destigmatizing mental health issues, and free mental health services for all. We have to question how we can afford to finance war in Ukraine and Israel while we do without healthcare. How do you rest and recharge?   I try to pay attention to diet and exercise, it’s about progress, not perfection. You never get all this stuff right. Ultimately it comes down to I want to be here for the work and I have to be alive to do it!   As a spoken word artist, what is your current relationship with the performance of your work? Because of the pandemic and my personal health vulnerabilities, I have chosen to limit in-person presentations. So ZOOM is a big word for me right now. When I think of the performance of my work now, I see productions or movies. I would love to see Push , the musical. I would love to see a one-person choreopoem stage or film adaptation of The Kid .   Over time, your work has had a profound impact on readers from around the world, sparking important conversations and challenging societal norms. I love the anecdote you shared in The Poet Speaks Podcast  about a young woman who stopped you on the street to tell you Push  was her favorite book!  Can you share any other memorable experiences or encounters with readers who have been deeply affected by your writing? How do you feel in those moments? One moment that stands out for me is The Kid  and Push  both being translated into French, Chinese, Portuguese, and Italian, so readers could really get a sense of the world I was writing about in a way they could not if only Push  had been translated. Another moment that stands out was in November of 2022 I was invited to the Syracuse YMCA Downtown Writers Center as part of the Syracuse Symposium series: It Takes a Village: Recovering Our Children Through Literature & Literacy. I was honored to be invited. I had presented at this venue, Syracuse YMCA Downtown Writers Center, twelve or thirteen years ago. So, when the presenter was introducing me, he said, “She performed here 12 years ago”, then he said, “Some of those same people who were here twelve years ago are here tonight.” That just went all through me, it gave me a tremendous feeling of community and continuity. The work is so much bigger than bestseller lists and prizes. We’re, at least I am, trying to get the oppressor’s foot off our individual and collective neck as we simultaneously try to make something beautiful out of our existence. Do you have any hidden talents or special interests that people would be surprised to learn? Yes, I’m a visual arts person and have tried my hand at small assemblages and doll-making. What, if anything, is giving you hope these days? The continued blossoming of Black women’s writing and other forms of art. I’m inspired by the new BRILLIANT voices in Black women’s scholarship. I’m inspired by the anything is possible-ness of Serena Williams and Simone Biles! I’m inspired by the resistance that has sprung up all over the world, in the street and online, to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. There has been such a bold courageous response to the illegal mass punishment inflicted on the women and children of Gaza. It has given me great hope. I’m inspired by South African International Relations and Cooperation Minister Dr. Naledi Pandor who announced South Africa would be bringing charges of genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice in the Hague.   How can people support you right now? The best way to support me is to read the work. Make sure it’s not taken off the shelves in your local libraries. Support the brilliant scholarship, Sapphire’s Literary Breakthrough: Erotic Literacies, Feminist Pedagogies, and Environmental Justice Perspectives  by Elizabeth McNeil, Neal A. Lester, DoVeanna Fulton, and Lynette D. Myles about my work. And most of all keep writing and publishing your own brilliant and needed work!   Name other Black Women writers people should know. Novelist: Bessie Head, author of When Rain Clouds Gather , Maru , and A Question of Power.  (Born in South Africa to a white mother in a mental hospital at a time when interracial relationships were illegal; Bessie Head would go on to become one of Africa’s most influential writers.) Poet: Ai, author of the National Book Award winner Vice  and The Collected Poems of Ai  edited by Yusef Komunyakaa (Ai is known for her mastery of the dramatic monologue and exploration of outré subject matter.) Memoirist: Harriet Jacobs, author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself . (Notice the words “ Written by Herself ”. Until Harriet Jacobs wrote her memoir female African American slave narratives were written (and the content often censored) by white women amanuenses. Harriet Jacobs’ memoir was a game-changer.) Scholar: Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, author of They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South  which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History, the Dan David Prize, and the Merle Curti Social History Award. (A tour de force They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South  is also a game-changer and required reading for anyone interested in Black women’s lives, studies, and stories.)   ### Torch Literary Arts  is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

Natasha Ria El-Scari is a poet, performer, writer, Cave Canem alum, Ragdale Residency recipient and facilitator/educator for over two decades. Her poetry, academic papers, and personal essays have been published in anthologies, literary and online journals.  Born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, Natasha has a BA from Jackson State University and an MA from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. In 2015, Natasha released her first book, Screaming Times  (Spartan Press, 2015). Her second book, The Only Other  (Main Street Rag, 2016) dives into the taboo voice of the other woman. In 2019 Natasha released her first self-published and non-fiction book in collaboration with her son entitled, Mama Sutra: Love and Lovemaking Advice to My Son.  In 2020, Natasha self-released, I Say, T(He)y Say a chapbook about a special decade in her maternal grandmother’s life. In the same month she released Growing Up Sina , her first novel created after challenging herself creatively to grow outside of her first love, poetry. Her forthcoming work, Steelife , explores her feminist upbringing and the evolution of her womanhood. She recently released Te Deum: Lessons a performative collaboration with a chorale ensemble. Natasha’s CDs, DragonButterFirefly (2006), This is Love… (2010), CuddleComplex (2016),  We Found Us (2023) and DVD Live at the Blue Room  (2015) establish her as a spoken word artist.. This mother of two adult children and a bonus son is also the founder and curator of Black Space Black Art , an organization created to promote the exhibition of African American visual arts and businesses. She is also the founder and curator of the Natasha Ria Art Gallery , a small powerhouse that focuses on exhibiting marginalized visual artists. Natasha and her musician husband Kevin plan to open a day/overnight urban retreat space for creatives in the future. Follow Natasha on Instagram and Twitter . The Viewing   Big Mama's Funeral was pink, her suit pink, her casket pink, flowers, pink and her hands were hidden.   The Funeral Director said that it was best to cover Big Mama’s hands. They didn’t look like they belonged on her body.   I wanted to witness, one last time the pea shelling hands- faster than a machine at removing each eye from its socket into the tin bowl. If I shelled, silently, I got to listen   to woman-talk. As the sun went down the bowl weighed heavier between my knees where the gnats gathered with each pea drop.   The Funeral Director thought fit to add another layer of pink taffeta to cover her hands. He thought we would be as pleased as he, until her great granddaughter and self-proclaimed pink lover whispered, Where are her hands, did you bury them first?   Show her gnarled hands not just her pristine faith. Do not shroud her history like she was ugly. Show her dirty weapons. Display the things that saved us. ### Torch Literary Arts  is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, retreats, and special events. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

DeShara Suggs-Joe is a queer, Black poet and visual artist. She co-founded Daughter’s Tongue (an all-women writing collective), worked as the Creative Director of Workshops at Winter Tangerine, and is a former member of the Youth Speaks Collective. She received her MFA in Writing from California College of the Arts and fellowships from Callaloo, the Poetry Incubator, and Pink Door. In 2021, she received a nomination for "Best of the Net." She has published poems in Apogee Lit , Voicemail Poems , Poet Lore , The Texas Review , and elsewhere. She has also been featured on Button Poetry’s YouTube platform and has performed at the likes of Spotify, Yahoo, and Pinterest. Her debut chapbook is forthcoming from Button Poetry in April 2024. Visit her website and follow her on Instagram . Ode to the People Who Have Touched the Bottom I was born in a brokedown city some call it home some call it rockbottom bottom of the barrel crabs laughing in unison and me, I ran so fast my feet dissolved or dissipated the ground It’s funny or generous to be home and love it  make it your own wrap yourself in til it stings til your muscles remember til your momma’s calling cause your daddy don’t know where the door is it’s funny right   how home shapes your insides til you’re outside yourself wondering   what it takes to survive a place like this                                             & yet, a bomb never searched for my blood, FREE PALESTINE Never been trapped between rival bullets & forced from home, FREE SUDAN Never had a cell phone be worth more than me living, FREE THE CONGO Never had to fight over the way the river flows, FREE HAITI Never earthquaked & left for dead, FREE PUERTO RICO Never had fire sing her song all over my land, FREE HAWAII FREE     FREE     FREE     FREE ALL OPPRESSED PEOPLE from the foot of the oppressor & let our voices marry into a weapon strong enough to damage         And God?     What is justice but a well wish? An unsung lullaby? A tall tale? An unleaked battle cry? Waiting and wading? A knife in a nuke fight?   And God?        Are there black people in the future? Are there poor people in the future? Are there queer people in the future? Are there trees in the future? Is there fresh water in the future? Are there poets in the future?   And God? Is there a future that I should long for? Is there a future that I should fight for? When will the meek inherit the earth? In this lifetime or the next or the next or? ### Torch Literary Arts  is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, retreats, and special events. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

A Chicago native, Lor Clincy orients her work in all things real and raw. She references her upbringing and identity, exploring the layers of her life in contained transparency often wondering what she can process next. She received her BA in English and Creative Writing from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her work, as a teen, was published at Syracuse University through a summer creative writing program, and The Chicago Beat. Last summer, her chapbook, RESOLVE, was published by BottleCap Press. Her recent poetry has been published in Foothill Poetry Journal’s Fall 2023 issue. She will appear in ALLIUM: A Journal of Poetry and Prose in Spring 2024. Currently, Lor is a MFA student in the English and Creative Writing program at Columbia College Chicago. Follow her on her website and Instagram .   For the Condemned      -  after 79th, Kwabena Foli    I considered his mother a victim, ruined by the carrying. I’ve measured his father as Creator, a concept destroyed by freedom. Seldom do we frequent her grief. Somebody’s  daughter conceived a baby on her own, and the world worships her. We hold tight to belief that his father shaped universe once.      He gave rage. Made men in his image, made Mary like me.  How many sons die on crosses for their father and why must their mothers bury their bodies? To have a God is to know how to surrender. On knees, we do not know   you can plead standing, an amen lingering, each before phases of timid silence. I imagine her anguish and his wrath as other.   This is the lament the son carried as he bled, accepting that   his father’s will surpassed his own. This was the only way.     His story is unique in its prevalence, taught   men to obey the first time they are called to die. Taught me   salvation has less to do with free will and all to do with obedience. How   many sons die on crosses, anticipating their fathers to call them home? Bleating, the lamb becomes the shepherd: be   mindful of the fields, the hills, on their own, roll still.    His mother wrapped him, read his body’s bones, and   held them until he settled. How  many fathers leave their sons to succumb to   their wounds? But he was resting, the lamb said. Be  mindful of the fields, the hills roll still. She wept, afraid to admit he had been used.      ### Torch Literary Arts  is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, retreats, and special events. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

Arisa White is a Cave Canem fellow, Sarah Lawrence College alumna, an MFA graduate from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the author of several award-winning poetry collections including Who’s Your Daddy. Arisa White is an associate professor of English and Creative Writing at Colby College. She is the author of Who’s Your Daddy , co-editor of Home Is Where You Queer Your Heart, and co-author of Biddy Mason Speaks Up, the second book in the Fighting for Justice Series for young readers. Her poetry is widely published, and her collections have been nominated for an NAACP Image Award, Lambda Literary Award, and have won the Per Diem Poetry Prize, Maine Literary Award, Nautilus Book Award, an Independent Publisher Book Award, and Golden Crown Literary Award.  As the creator of the Beautiful Things Project, Arisa curates poetic collaborations that are rooted in Black queer women’s ways of knowing. She is a Cave Canem fellow and serves on the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance Community Advisory Board. Currently in development with composer Jessica Jones, Arisa is working on Post Pardon: The Opera. Visit Arisa's website for more. it takes me a while to step from your cobalt stare to lose the spotlight of your love is a cloddish stampede from nowhere   i am not as cool as a swore this back is not called an avant-garde you are free and you are my favorite and it’s a parasympathetic response   every time you appear in my dreams you want medicine you are a tunnel’s dark trope and the wind passing through is justice   but the deepest stab thrusts the most and I concur I am a visitor more than happy to hold the mirror pinky up, you promised we were flames   burn it to the bottom handsome boi, your nipples a slow-erase then you with moat and mortar and wounds with victims in their mouths   arachnid and simple-breasted like a ball of yarn she came first, whereas she came tumbling and chained to a quartet of the same— tatas ill-tempered and lightning-flavored   the memorial of their touch daybreaking and disloyal, and although my knees would gladly suffer morning’s copper cut, standing up for myself is a soul ambulation In a reasonable amount of time   Text me back within the hour, otherwise, you make a bad bitch feel like grits without taste, a city without its early morning reprise of joggers.   Born from blunt and smoke, you’re a familiar trick I play on myself. On this return, I have more tools than a screwdriver.   This is my seventh transmutation. You inside of me is the waterfall’s surrender, the applause of cedars, all the sway of cattails.   I have a list and a heart beating too fast for you. You were never in my orbit and you called me back. I’m speechless my first time in space.   I am in July and you are in June. I fit you into these fifteen minutes before meeting about federal grants and their specific guidelines.   Drop my croissant, pay the clerk no mind, and tap the green phone. Leave my debit card to sit in the luxury of your voice—   tell me how you feel with a verb and horizon. I need depth to secure my succulents. You, my dear, are so handsome, I’m spring.   I’ve lost the ground I stand on. Spend weeks suspended in a wind tunnel, in a blue noise, that keeps me from autumn. I’ll kiss you in the ante meridian and my latitudes take kissing over settler colonialism any day. I keep finding your Jack Russell in my curl signature, snarled and percussive. Nonetheless, dew-stricken petals wait for me to forget-you-not. It is true— this summer shower is the devil in me. You’ve gone outside without an umbrella or zipper-front London Fog. Your absence presents like a pilgrim in pumps. There’s no question I will forfeit my superlatives. In the cul-de-sac, my tall drink of water, your bust on this Tuesday-Sunday. I look at art and think about you until “I See Red:” on oil, acrylic, paper, newspaper, and fabric on canvas, these mountains give the fireworks perspective: love needs a new vehicle and time to lose on you. I can’t relate at that league, my heart is solely incorporated, me and me in a Cape in Maine.   Guests are privately undressed in this hard-broke space, you are not relative to this unpacking.   Frighten to sore your eyes with my belly, I have no model for the vulnerability of being seen.   Public funk of a dead thing growing again and who knows when I’ll arrive redolent.   I’m wet behind the ears, adultly infant and driving automatic but willing to get there.   I’ve pleased so hard, I’ve lied. It’s all in my dysregulation, the vulgate and goldenrod.   I can educate you on apricity. Heat superficial and distant, we’ll never strike a match.   My god’s forgiveness is transactional and the privileges of my flesh means I ghost easily.   Beware of trolls who message you on the first of a new year— I had no bridge for you to cross. Best way out is through   I’m pulling further from your porch   not turning around, I’m moving toward grief   a long thorn stuck between my knuckles for days   every fight is a reach to the bone   disappointment can’t settle me into prayer   what this deep affection has done   —in the face of your density—   is show the saboteur moonwalking   I have no qualms about erasing God’s sandprints   it’s ancestral to blast these moody pop songs   fashion a belt to keep my cargo from exposing my junk   every pocket filled to the stitch with California poppies   three drops daily with water to flower   sirens go by and I’m reminded I’m not Thoreau   I eat shoulder-to-shoulder with the fear of my rejection   each owl is excited by my presence and terrifies me   where’s the tavern of our first kiss?   you glimmered brighter when not defensive   held my hand and our hands bridged between us   all was broken and eagled into song   we treated anything anybody said as a collective utterance THE INTERVIEW This interview was conducted between Jae Nichelle and Arisa White on January 30, 2024. The poems you’ve shared are full of tenderness and longing. Reading them, I felt like they were working together to pull me into a greater story. Can you talk about the relationship these poems have to each other—why you pulled them together, specifically? The poet and editor Kate Angus once told me that I write heartbreakingly beautiful poems. And so I’m embracing that: how much can a heart break? What emerges from the breaks? What does that emergence sound like? How does it feel? What is actually breaking?  Essentially, it’s about love and loss. Falling in and out of love. Being with the descent and the insight that comes from such vulnerability. Recognizing that love in the present is repairing some lovelessness of the past. Like some spiritual polycule. It’s so peopled, our love.  In “Best way out is through,” I was so entranced by the line “sirens go by and I’m reminded I’m not Thoreau.” Ancestry is invoked earlier in the poem, and it makes me curious to know what writers you see as part of your lineage. Who do you learn from? I wrote that line while I was at Hedgebrook this past July. Sitting by the pond, surrounded by all this green, with an owl at my back, and nothing about where I was felt mechanical. And then, in the distance, sirens. The machines. The man. And the flesh is activated in a psychosocial sort of way, and all of a sudden, I feel separate from my surroundings. I feel an unbelonging. Writers and poets who have schooled me on my belonging are Toni Morrison, Medbh McGuckian, Ai, and Audre Lorde.  Can you share any pivotal moments in your writing journey that significantly influenced your perspective and approach to poetry? I interned with the dance company Urban Bush Women (UBW) during my undergraduate years at Sarah Lawrence College. UBW held a summer institute in Florida one year I was interning, and I was invited to go. The institute comprised emerging dancers, master teachers, and scholars, and it was a beautifully intense time of movement-making. During one session, when the artistic director Jawole Willa Jo Zollar was working with a group of dancers, she called me to the stage to write a poem to accompany the choreography. I watched them rehearse for 10 minutes, and then inspiration struck. I remember everyone, Jawole included, being impressed with the evocative quality of the poem written on the fly. This moment was when I realized I wanted my poetry to collaborate with other art forms, to move beyond the page, and be an embodied experience.  You’re writing an opera! Can you share more about what goes into being a librettist?  A lot of patience goes into it. Excellent collaborators. Institutional and philanthropic support. This is my first time writing a libretto. The biggest hurdle was giving myself the permission to do so–to step into something new using the tools of poetry to guide me as I find my footing in this new genre. It was helpful to research other black poets who have written libretti, which provided me with a lineage and literary community to ground and see myself in. Langston Hughes and June Jordan both wrote operas. So working from that historical literary point of view, instead of feeling like an imposter within opera’s elite airs, I could imagine and know myself as a librettist. Turning to our contemporary and current times, there are many black poets who have crossed over into the opera/librettist world: Tracy K. Smith, Thulani Davis, Douglas Kearney, Vievee Francis, Samiya Bashir, and Nikkey Finney to name a few.  As a writer of many genres and styles, how does your creative process change when working on starkly different projects?  My process doesn’t change that much; the basic ingredients still remain. Research, writing, and revising. If I’m working in a different form, I research that form, acquaint myself with the different writers who work in the form, and I seek editorial advice from those who work actively in the form. Often, I open the creative process to include collaborators, so that requires clear communication, a willingness to let go, and the desire to see the work broaden with, and through, the creative genius of those involved. The Beautiful Things Project is a fascinating initiative. What is one of the most memorable collaborations from this project so far? In the Fall of 2022, I worked with a few students from Colby College as background vocalists and my colleague and musician Jose Martinez to create a dramatic reading of my poetic memoir Who’s Your Daddy  at the Versant Power Astronomy Center & Jordan Planetarium in Orono, Maine. I worked with a small team at the Planetarium to create visuals and animations on different skies. Constellations, astrology, and “the stars”--just generally–are recurring themes in Who’s Your Daddy. So it made perfect sense to do a reading in the planetarium! What are you streaming these days, if anything? I just finished up AMBITIONS  on Hulu. I love a shady and bitchy Robin Givens–she was a bougie-snot even then in Head of the Class ! You can see how ambition is such supremacy at times. “I’m ambitious,” becomes a way to excuse bad human behavior, to form insecure and anxious attachments that keep everyone in a transactional mode, and love stays in short supply.  If a museum about anything could exist, what’s a super specific museum you would like to visit? A museum of teeth. Teeth from different species. Teeth inventions. I’m currently going through a year-long process of a dental restorative procedure and I’m thinking about teeth. Gum health. Fake teeth. How white is too white for teeth? How much attention, time, and resources do I want to give to maintaining iPod white teeth? If our culture wasn’t so vain about our teeth, could I still be a professor with a missing front tooth? I’m already navigating the interlocking oppressions of black, woman, lesbian, . . ., and to not have a proper set of teeth . . . I’m looking forward to my senior years when I have reached the next-next level of gives-no-fucks and I’m bravely toothless and laughing out loud.  What is a perfect food to you? A bowl of soup, any kind. (Lol, especially after my previous response.) How can people support you? Buy my books and then send me D​Ms telling me which poem you enjoyed. To help bring​ Post Pardon​: The Opera,  to ​its premiere, ​donate to the project postpardon.org/support .  Name another Black woman writer people should follow.  Anastacia-Renee ### Torch Literary Arts  is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

Isha Camara is a Gambian-American poet and visual artist from South Minneapolis, Minnesota. She earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Masters at Randolph College in Creative Writing. Her work has been featured in Palette Poetry , Southeast Review , Muzzle Magazine , Rhino Poetry, and Lumiere Review . She has performed for the Madison Public Library, Walker Art Center, and American Composers Forum. Isha seeks to sate her curiosities by layering myths with modern desires, questions and obsessing over these old stories by polishing them inside poetic forms and digital art. Visit Isha's website and follow her on Instagram and X (Twitter) . Kanifing, Gambia Grandfather’s compound, 2009 The first time I saw a chicken killed, I did not care to hold grief in me like I would were it a baby or a dog. That young, I didn’t know grief. I was fascinated. The one who orchestrated the murder was a grandmother, sharp, elbows welded like a blade. She knew not to scatter blood-grief, but instead made a song out of clucking. I liked that. But death didn’t stop. On white floors came the plucking.  Do it – I’m prompted to join, feel grief grin over me. I marvel at the public undressing of the almost dead. The chicken is pink, chatty. It fashes its slit neckbone at me in flirt, performing grief like a last ditch effort to be released. I cluck  i’m sorry . My collarbone rattles too. I remember the man that wrangled me into his barn. I pick the fence metal griefed inside of me. I blink. Now I bring the poultry to boiling water. Till the feathers I couldn’t pluck with my hands fall. I am passed another chicken before my grief can settle. This one is feisty, breaks from my arms. I follow like a man behind it. During its useless scramble, Isha thought: what dance would I perform in grief? ### Torch Literary Arts  is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

Ajanaé Dawkins is an interdisciplinary poet, performance artist, and theologian. She writes about her matrilineage to explore the politics of faith, grief, the intimacy of relationships, and sensuality. She has work published or forthcoming in The Rumpus, Prairie Schooner , the Indiana Review, Frontier Poetry , The BreakBeat Poets Black Girl Magic Anthology, and more. Ajanaé is the winner of the Tinderbox Poetry Journal’s Editors Prize, a finalist for the Cave Canem Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady Chapbook Prize, and a finalist for the Brett Elizabeth Jenkins poetry prize. She was the Taft Museum’s 2022 Duncanson Artist in Residence and is a fellow of Torch Literary Arts, The Watering Hole, and Pink Door. Ajanaé is currently a co-host of the VS Podcast, Ohio State University’s UAS Community Artist-in-Residence, and the Theology Editor for the EcoTheo Review. You can find her in the middle of the dance floor, skate rink,  local winery, library, karaoke night, or in her kitchen cooking something slow. Visit Ajanaé's website and follow her on Instagram and Twitter . Alene’s Monologue  Excerpt from, Where Black Girls Go, a one-woman show.   I got grown and thought I’d be a woman forever. Then, I became a mother and a grandmother and people forgot at some point I was a girl. Your body stew enough children, leak enough milk, have enough babies pressed to the titty and people think that’s all you ever been. A mother. A dutiful wife and then widow. A surgical blade across the abdomen for the third child and felt like a sharper one at my neck when my husband died. My daughters think I was born this way. My daughters look me in the eye with my own eyes and can’t see I’m a woman. They think they invented late nights and dance floors and the eye you give a man you got plans for. Hell, they think they invented feeling good. I try to tell them ain’t nothing new under the moon but who can borrow memory?   Against my body’s present failures, I hold the past up to the light. My knee acts up and I recall the tingle of recklessness under my younger skin. How on occasion, mid-dance, the music would rise right up in my body and carry me away to some gentleman’s home. Oh, the way we lied to our mommas about where we’d been and why our roots were honey-thick. Lied right through our teeth to our mommas.   I was a late bloomer so I was 19 the first time, me and my best friend snuck out to the club. I told my momma we were going to the picture show and back to her parent's house to study. We went to the club and we danced until our feet rehearsed aging. We were liquored up, and our perms were fresh, and we were smelling ourselves. We didn’t have money and taxis were slow so we hitchhiked to a second club. (Of course, you can’t do this anymore but we stuck our thumbs out until they were stiff with cold.)   And, this fine  man picked us up. Skin, clean and brown as new leather and the whitest teeth I’ve ever seen. Definitely older than us at the time. He had a joint hanging from his lip and offered us some. I had never tried reefer but, why not? I puffed in that passenger seat until I was so far away from my body, I could see my hair curling up in my kitchen like springs. I puffed until I was laughing so hard the teeth fell out all his jokes…until my pulse, his smile, and the music in the stereo were all on the same beat. It was around 4 am when I got home and my momma slapped me clean across my face when I lied about falling asleep studying for finals. She slapped me so hard that I think even she forgot she had been a woman before she was my momma. ### Torch Literary Arts  is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.