The World Says Not to Expect the World
–Khadijah Queen

But do it anyway —                be made, all
out of love—             taken, bestowed, lived
through, by means of, without

the beauty we don’t want
to waste              & the world says it
wants, but trashes, sees as glut, usable

in a finite manner          We like talk
of human          forevers as holes in us
unfilled, we’re raggedy apartments

Which thin glamour to blame for such
schism, runaways          & orchids
tattooed on wrists or thighs, as dull men scoff—

We still say             keep fighting

& love me again—           don’t the pines die, too

& exactly          with our names

Photo by María Ten on Unsplash

Ut Pictura Poesis
–Khadijah Queen
How do I fancy a good atonement        Homebound body
so slow to bounce back from overuse, meaning, darling,

A cuff of immensity threads me —                  centrifugal
I could fragment thus a rifle shard in a blood flick, dew
perched upon arrival

Where travel is a future &
not such arts
as ordinary inheritance azure mass — explicit menace
in a wing lull     I try not to take
My mother, grandmother for granted
& not       their elegant fierceness in flight–                How do

I resurrect the excised archive of my relatives
How to use the word
love, mean it          my animal glow–sacred rot
This luxury of time to even ask: Who were they

Photo by Geert Pieters on Unsplash