by Dana Tenille Weekes

there are no fireworks in this body of a sky.
no gunpowder seething for a lit fuse, a chance

for its dusty existence to resurrect as a star
manufactured. there is no chemistry curdling 

my cortisol into flight or fight, a sort of alchemy 
called an ionic bond. this body of a sky is bare

in the blues before the sun creeps into the folds 
of my back to rest. blues begging me to swirl 

the clouds with pickpocketed breath finding me 
again. look at these blues poured onto me, into me

now rolling onto asphalt, now rubbing oak roots 
barricaded by this path we walk with woven fingers. 

---

Dana Tenille Weekes explores the interiority of what human beings dare to do and are afraid to say. Her poems have been published in RHINO Poetry, Torch Literary Arts, and A Gathering of the Tribes and will be in a forthcoming issue of Obsidian. She is the daughter of Bajan immigrants.