after Carl Phillips, Storm
your seafoam (translucent and black) takes flight – becomes ember
and shadow (and dust, perhaps) and feather and ochre and groove
there are so many ways to tell a story about despair (i
mean, joy)
how many times,
a body between bodies, moving to an old hum,
commits to breath, to touch, to that
tilting back of the head (that
grasping the shoulders back) that pulls the heart, ever fleetingly,
away from the spine; the thrum of liquor, the pulse
of fingers, the
tongue.
your palm flutters into my skin – how many powers to how many glories? – like
the difference between joy and ache, between a chest bared and shrouded,
like the devotion that
walks us into the grave
Alírio Karina is a Mozambican poet, whose work examines queer life and colonial remains. Their poems have been published in Jalada Africa, Kenyon Review, Jornal RelevO, Blind Field Journal, and Crab Fat Magazine.
