we’ve picked a color to make her happy / honey blonde or burgundy / a hollering red / blissful obsidian / a dreamy lavender / after the wash & waking / of each strand / with something to keep moisture / I touch the scalp with ease / bring only good gifts / & listen to the singing in my lower back / neck / arms & wrist / when I conjure the souls of these digits / to practice / my pinky gives me the most pain / when I am braiding / shouts at its bend / ties yarn or kanekalon / at the square root of someone’s head / someone who I love / & my shoulders hunch in defiance / & my forehead oils itself anew / & my knees bring their grievances / to the top of the bloodstream / & here / is my body / wilting in reverence. / if I could / I would destroy every memory / of standing in a mirror / with brush & head half done / the feeling of needing help / & no one to ask for it / I don’t know what the world expects / of little Black girls but / it isn’t / freedom / to know oneself intimately / to take pleasure in our many transformations / grow 18 inches of weave in the span of a few hours / & be recognizable only to those who love us whole / & consistently / I make braids or conversation / & the head I am working leans & aches / we cue a movie / coo a humble song / & ours is a texture architectural / mimicking the forest & its triumphant green / I take the shape of trees / I am as old as the unshed leaf / every spruce cedar & pine is showing off for me / & all my sisters deserve the sun’s reach / the wind’s kiss & howl / atop the scalp / proof we are the earth’s earliest kin / shapeshifting for protection / & when we are done / I slip each end through a candle’s light / or cloth and burning water / a small flame prayer / sent up in smoke / or sealed & soaking / in the center of my hands / this I learned / this I taught myself / a secret I pass to all I love who mirror me / I don’t know what the world expects / of little Black girls but / we never did this to be beautiful / though we did become so / in the process

————————————–

Ariana Brown called us from Houston, TX.

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"We Never Did This To Be Beautiful" by Ariana Brown

There is a dog somewhere
In my building
That cries all day for love
In our shared shelter

Crying all day for love
I searched the staircases
And the old boxes people leave 
By the dumpster when it’s too full

By the too-full dumpster
And I brought myself 
To peer into the pool
And then I saw the dog

What a dog, what a dog
Weaving back and forth 
On the skin of the water
Crying for love like water
When it blathers under a bridge

Crying with my cry 
Shaking like I shake
Looking at my eyes with my eyes
On the skin of the crying water

And I felt that when I was looking
Through the heaps of trash
For what was crying all day for love
I felt that I was looking through myself

But what I did was jump
Into the water expecting to sink
Only to smash the dog’s face
Into ripples that have never stopped.

————————————–

Megan Wildhood called us from Albany, NY.

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"Way Down" by Megan Wildhood

Tiny oblivion sinking in throat
Explodes and itself
In liver.
With passing exhales of smoke.
Flashing secret smiles.
My life orbited three streets
And two corners.
Under nose lights
Abandoned churches
Now recording studios
Or tattoo parlors.
Warm fuzzy orb
Growing in gut
And all you have to do
Is sit there and look at me
Like that.
Drowned by
These harsh red lights.
All this
Fleshing melting into another
And I will stand there
Alive with pleasure or whatever
Looking back at you.

————————————–

James Milanesi called us from Philadelphia, PA.

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"Warm Fuzzy Orb" by James Milanesi

I’m 30!!
Scream that. Put that on everything. It’s the– 
dash of cinnamon on my coffee (30!) 
sweet almond oil in my hair just as I’m heading out (30!) 
chenille sweater coming off (30!) and on (30!) and off (30!) and on (30!) all over Philly because no one agrees on the thermostat when snow is still on the ground, but it’s a drizzly 60 degrees (30! x2)
parsley atop my shakshuka (30!) 
words of the language I don’t recognize, rolling around the table next to me (30!) 
group video call and my friends’ democratic selection for my next tattoo placement (30!)

I’m 30!!
Fuck your– 
syntax
parallel structure
every lesson you ever learned (except all the ones that made you. so maybe unfuck them all)

I’m 30!!
Full stop. Unless I keep going- which I will. Because…. you guessed it.

I’m 30 in a leap year!!
Give me an extra day to be flirty & formidable. 
I’ve barely begun and can already tell you’re going to have to drag me out, but only if I don’t burst first.
Life at full volume! Decibels abrasive and gentle. 
Stay with me. There’s such a ride ahead.
But for today, it’s simple.

I’m 30!!

————————————–

Sebastian Ellios called us from Durham, NC.

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"Thriving!" by Sebastian Ellios

The ladies strut from the shower like it’s a locker room catwalk. 
Puddles of sagging breast and belly, a generous portion of
doughed and dimpled ass. All out on display. 
This is the lavatorial garden of Eden — who needs a towel?

Over showers and steam, they discuss dinner and dementia.
The rules of pickleball. A recent cancer diagnosis. The State 
of the Union. The conversation follows no clear path, just ebbs
and flows like water. Like wine. Like women being women. 

I watch this scene unfold from the safety of the toilet stall. 
I dress in the shadows of a well-lit room, tighten my corset 
of modesty. Like Eve, I ate the apple once. I couldn’t resist 
its shiny red taste, that seductive sweetness.
I’ve been clothed in shame ever since.

The ladies keep stripping, keep singing, keep sagging all over 
the place and I’ve been told that getting old 
is a death sentence — but damn 
if they don’t look
 alive.

————————————–

Jillian Stacia called us from Baltimore, MD.

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"The Women's Locker Room 10 AM on Thursdays, Immediately Following Water Aerobics" by Jillian Stacia

Today, I have decided I will go to CVS.
I will put on a belt and socks and shoes,
put my keys and my phone in my pocket,
and walk toward the door. I will almost forget
my mask, but I will remember, put it on, and
once again walk toward the door.

I love going to CVS. I hate people. My mask
helps me reconcile these feelings. CVS
also helps. My local store has minimized
the role of other people in my purchasing
experience through its use of automated
checkout machines, emailed receipts,

a rewards program based on a virtual card
that is stored on my phone, tracking my every
move and purchase so that I might not be bothered
with such things, and other innovations. I look forward to
the automatic doors sliding open for me, beckoning me
with the invisible light of their innumerable sensors,

their silent welcome nestling me into my nearest
branch’s warm, fluorescent arms. I relish this moment. I
consider the fact that my father briefly worked
at Walgreens — a major CVS competitor. CVS
brings with it the possibility of resolution
of childhood trauma. CVS is what the self-help

books I read on the basis of my therapist’s
recommendation tell me I have been looking for
in a partner. It was right there in front of me
all along, just past the corner of happy & healthy,
at the intersection of Convenience, Value, and Service.
I want to take off my shoes and socks and feel the store’s

abrasive carpet on my feet. I want to rub my
body on every available surface and belt out
as many words as I remember of “All For You,” “Kiss Me,”
"Always Be My Baby," and other 90s favorites. I want to splatter
my humanity all over this store's palette of eggshell and teal.
But I will restrain myself. I am an only child. I will consider

what this moment of life compels me to buy.

As I check myself out with a convenience only the absence
of workers can afford, money seeps out of me. I don't
exchange it so much as I allow it to flow in response
to the flow of goods into my Gem House USA Pavilion
tote bag. The money I give is mostly an idea. It's a
particular formation of language having something to do

with power. Most of the words involved are numbers.
The technical term for this is Near Field Communication.
The money feels like water or the idea of water or something
else of similar viscosity. This money flowed into me from my employer,
through a rivulet carved into the earth over many years
by the caste ascribed to my ancestors and subsequently to me

because of our similar appearance. While much of my employer's money
comes from taxpayers and the surplus value of my work --
which is to say, from me -- due to the nature of my work,
I can only assume the remainder of my employer's money
flowed there from medical students. Demographic information
tells us that this money flowed to them primarily from their

wealthy parents. I imagine one of these parents being
Larry J. Merlo, president and CEO of CVS who, in a 2015 SEC filing,
reported the highest CEO-to-average-employee pay ratio
of any American company. And so the money,
having flowed through many different streams and over many
different fields, now returns to the lake from which it came.

Welcome home, money. The lake has missed you.
Now imagine where that money came from. Imagine longer journeys.
Imagine the ocean and sky. From the depths of that ocean, millions of
people call out to their money.

Sgr A*

————————————–

William Hazard called us from Philadelphia, PA.

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"Resentment: Big Water" by William Hazard

Each morning I rose from the bed of my own heavy August 
dreams, wandered in an orange glow, watched the wind heave	
bellows and break through the blanket of earth’s own breath. 
We were children of the stadium, filling it with waves and chirps,	

dreamy trombone, clarinet, and the orange trumpet blare in wind. Heavier	
under each hour on the turf. A sauna of sneakers and spit. Instruments 
chirped and marched into form. Stadium babies made to make waves 		
for the press box to watch a rolling beach of brass and steel. We ached

after each hour on the turf and spit sunscreen from sticky lips. The sun
started to slip on her evening dress. Ourselves stretched out on fake grass
while the press box watched. We rolled around the brass and steel. Hugged
our knees, pointed toes, rubbed our ribs jeweled in sweat. When Vera

found me, we ran like we ourselves were the evening dress on the sun	
and clung to something sparkling. The ever-moving glitter of the river
welcomed our knees and toes and rubbed our ribs until jeweled. Vera
called us sirens warning the world, asked for bliss and plunged again.

————————————–

Gwenyth Wheat called us from Lake Charles, LA.

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"Pantoum for Marching Band Lore" by Gwenyth Wheat

Beyond the cornfield, 
up from the old dirt road, 
the tree perch in the field, 
deer in those trees for miles, 
I played in the sand of the lot 
by the road leading up through 
the pasture.  I spent days 
skipping down the steep steps 
to the river, out to the dock, 
to greet my grandfather, 
gutting a fish.  

He used a pair of rusty handled pliers 
to peel off its inky skin, sipping a beer from a 
key stroke hole in the can.
 
He saw a light in me for the black water 
and the bull frogs croaking at night,
and because I had just turned eight, 
he let me ride into town 
for the July dance.

Riding back, the air sucked in from 
the windows down of my cousin’s truck,
speeding back on the highway, 
shifting the gears for my cousin’s 
girlfriend driving us, my cousin in the 
passenger seat, my brother 
between him and my own body 
circling, I could see the peanut fields 
for miles.

 


We were forbidden to walk 
one hundred yards past the outhouse 
because of the bed of water moccasins 
in the creek living below the one-laned bridge, 
the bee hive in a tree on the edge of the clearing, 
the copperhead we had seen earlier on a log, 
and the rattlesnake dead 
in the back of my grandfather’s 
motorboat, floating belly up, 
next to the one he had killed 
the week before.


From all the way out there 
on the water, you could smell 
yesterday’s catch cooking,
the tails dipped in batter, 
fried in butter.  You could 
hear the tails crackling, 
my grandfather laughing.

We hurried back fast through the 
patch of lily pads and cattail blossoms
which reminded me of an outcropping 
I had seen once before of a patch of 
cypress knees jutting out from the 
water along the swamp road leading down 
to North Carolina.

We continued along, some of the trees 
still tied up, orange string on the low branches
my grandfather had set, bait for catfish.

 



I was half out of the boat before 
the others tied to the dock.  I was 
already most of the way up the stairs 
when everyone else started up. 
We all ran to the kitchen to wash our hands.  
We found our seats at the table, 
sat up tall in our chairs, as we were taught, 
the blue and red checkered tablecloth 
lining the grey wood planks.  

The rule was we ate the fish’s tail last, 
the last inch or two of it at least, 
an old tradition we had kept from 
the years before, attending to it,
believing in us, telling ourselves this, 
this part of the river, this part of the fish 
holding some knowledge.

————————————–

A. Logan Hill called us from Richmond, VA.

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"On the Nottoway" by A. Logan Hill

Everything about us fits 
like two keys for one chest

one chest opening to make 
a space large enough for all 

the fear we carry. I cherish 
most the way our hands knew

the first time they touched. 
Our lips, too, met like old lovers. 

The rest of us a dozen volcanoes 
determined not to go dormant 

until our bodies are red and hot 
and empty, my shoulders covered 

in your explosion, teeth like small 
craters. A history that aches 

for days after you leave. Your ribs 
and hips carry our night sharp 

bruised and wanting for one more 
chance at uninventing this impossible 

distance between my pulse and yours. 
I tell you I feel your pulse at the tip 

of my finger. You flex and unflex 
against my knuckles. I wonder 

if you know how good my imagination 
is. How with each flex my hips flinch. 

I hear you tell me to come. Your voice 
already a familiar song I sing to myself 

for weeks—at the grocery store, folding 
clothes, at the gym. Everywhere 

you are with me, telling me to come. 
I am already home.

————————————–

Ronnie K. Stephens called us from Texas.

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"Incantation" by Ronnie K. Stephens

I stole my father’s suit jacket
Before it became mine—
Tenderly, oversized and engulfed
In it, proud, powerful. I can inhale a blue
Whale in this tux, deep into my diaphragm, then
Blow you a balloon bouquet. I’ll wear these
Pressed silhouette lines 
That are also soft to the touch; curves of fine
Fabric that is worn with hugs and pats
On the back but also soaked in alcohol
Induced scream-singing and unabashed 
Goosebumps that tickle the satin lining;
I’ll wear it until it is worn
In every stitch and seam, with soda can
And champagne flute condensation 
On the sleeve edges, and the lapels lick
The sweat of your perfect palms 
When you kiss me like you can’t
Picture anyone else wearing it.

————————————–

Hillary Nguyen called us from San Francisco, CA.

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"I'll Wear your Love the Same Way" by Hillary Nguyen

What the lynx caught can’t be told,
and everything I’m about to tell you,
you already know.

Look down. Fur mottles ice.
In the years I had no 
I signed letters with      [ ]:

a dash - of cayenne 
& the whiteness of blank	



You can preserve yourself 
with salt    
     I did;
those wet 
crystals glisten

For 25 moons, 
a blizzard flurried 
from my fist


all over once white 
red jewels 
into precious

but gems 
of name eluded

& viscera claims
your feet

I avoided signatures
and kept my voicemail 
greeting generic

you could cry out
but sound

would cling cold 
and slick to your face
To not atrophy, I wove 
syllables on a loom

then wore them around my neck

but now:

but now—


Paper absorbs ink and
is stamped by the court.

sunburst.



Officially changed,

bones broken
into splint

I do not confess 
to feeling lost

maps cannot 
chart 

in my new home 
of letters, 

cannot admit homesickness 
for the journey

hot flesh 
in belly

Who could?


nobody asks the lynx
if it regrets the chase.


An axe splinters 
my palms though
with memories of an old pelt


hold steady—

————————————–

Reece Rowan Gritzmacher called us from Flagstaff, AZ.

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"Fresh Blood in Snow" by Reece Rowan Gritzmacher

Poetry via voicemail. Missed calls you need to hear.

Open submissions accepted.
Guidelines at http://voicemailpoems.org

"We Never Did This To Be Beautiful" by Ariana Brown

VOICEMAIL POEMS

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