My pussy sweet—

lovers, lip to lip, name her coco-butter

 

coochie; or on some Florida nights: bog-boy

punany, swampy tulips hot

 

with the black bush parted like Moses

in search of the promised land. I christen crown

 

jewels in a thicket of knots & braids, & the napped afro

weeds: my halo. Reach behind the drooping angel

 

wings & a tick-tock sway keeps time in units of distance

from heaven—or, estrogen waiting to gild my blood. I promised

 

to let lovers fuck only my broken skin. Patch all my

imperfections with grafts of fleshy, pity-palms. One future,

 

I’ll be golden with sutures who rip & weep through

my jeans, where a biblical flood will follow & velvet

 

denim in minutes, making up for lost time. We have no word

for how Black boys undo the seams of their curves, just dreams

 

where boys hold bouquets as tender as they hold each other.

I dress my seams in peony, softly sewing dresses to wounds,

 

& asking God to name me after the first girl I loved & loved

pretending to be. My pussy ghost Lilly, choked by Florida

 

fauna—seraphim of survival. Heaven hears me spread

my legs & braces for the weight of silence. My pussy

 

the heaviest whisper: a god

I want to believe in.

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

MARINA AVERY ROBINSON is a trans poet and punk from Orlando. She is a recent MFA graduate from the University of Pittsburg. She has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Tin House, Lambda Literary, The Watering Hole, and Community of Writers. Previously, she was the recipient of two Pushcart nominations, the 2023 Porter House Review Editor’s Prize, and second place at the 2024 Envisioning a Just Pittsburgh contest. Her poems can be found in Beloit Poetry Journal, Black Warrior Review, Obsidian, Seventh Wave, and others. You can find her wherever the music is loudest.

 

 

The art that appears alongside this piece is “Kendrick in Love, detail shot” by JONATHAN KENT ADAMS.