Southern, Belled.
By Emma Bolden
Baby ain’t a bellow ain’t an
option ain’t a good night a night for fighting all
thatsex skinnied up in the bones a fair shimmy
in a sense of tight is right is this bud’s for you a
metaphor I’d rather strip down to the brute of it
the bruise of no opposition in this partyhis tank
screamed wife-
beater & why was I born into the
belief that flesh is a mystery only a beating can
solve. There are better options than betting on the
bad to stay a boy, than stuffing the cabinet wax full
with figures waning to the pale inside a hanger a
coat un-
bodied beneath a sky of mirrora frenzied
frieze of cameras clicked into the parchment rolled
into a fist is not a blessing but a hand
standssalting
the salt of the earth the manwhite stole from under
eyes & angels & exits I pray for just one rule to law all
flesh as the freedom to travel every last forever a road
laid by a language that recognizes “we’does not
have an I for an eye