TATIANA CLARK
cw – death, blood, body horror
inheritance
& the dead unmoor
themselves from the sky / & consume / the ground / in a language
of omens. another plea / clots / in the shape of an unmarked
grave. the last time i saw heaven / on earth was on the backend
of a white man’s frenzy. forgive me: the green coasts are elegized
with winter, impregnating / my head with shadows. god-
likes, extrapolating. listen: their jawbones / are humming
in the silence they make of us: like mythology, / like enamel. your
name settles on the curve of my tongue, & all the spiders i thought
i put away come loose like maddened fish running / from salt.
in this version, everything is upended: smoke mistakes for clouds,
men banish the mountains, God answers to blue / animals.
everything dead makes a bed for the living. these streets are filled
& filling / with the kinds of lore you witness
but cannot / feel. like bones, they carry our flesh into violent
& orchestral / reckoning / on account of occupying the space
between your window & the trees. listen: / even the gulfs are lighting
themselves up in mourning. black / persimmons unravel
where your body once did, / & a penny decays / in the fountain
of my spine. my father said, history has never repeated
itself. / the earth evolves but the world / holds residence over the lawn
of our necks. how do i explain our lives are reshaped / & worn
like pottery? my father taught me how to take extra care /
with delicate, bendable / things / & yet how do i begin to write / my body
is a warning when our bones were split long ago / under
a noose, when batons calcified in black erasure dangle
over the stool we tiptoe on? everything is partial;
in this version, your skin burdens biology / & bundles like a ghost
in possession of me. blood to my ears, bones / in my gut. my body
wrought across / an altar of wolven / insatiable hunger. my throat
beating against some highway in defense / of breathing. veins
rivering asphalt. / & it all comes back / to the name: each of us are
cradling sulfur like an unanswered prayer. / listen how we writhe &
blow / weeping like the crows & the deer: perishables, / gutter. i am
everywhere, & then no one at all. listen. listen.
Tatiana Clark is a Black poet, writer, and content creator. She holds a B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of South Florida, where she served as Managing Editor for the undergraduate journal Thread Magazine. Her poetry often centers on the intersectionality of darkness and the human condition, identity, and the sociopolitical climate. She is also inspired by nature, art, and mythology. Her work has been placed in The Shore, Ample Remains, and elsewhere, and you can find her on Twitter @tatiianaclark.