Androgyny
You were the last man inside me.
Now my girlfriend and I snip the balls
from the purple dildo I won
at a feminist raffle, and trash
the pink-skinned dick
which slipped into her harness—
reminding me of you. I tried
to learn to let you fuck me,
but lusted after every
punk-girl bassist at basement shows,
whose hair obscured the features
of her face. I allowed desire
in darkness, telling myself she could be
a boy. Watching her, riveted,
angular blond bangs hung
like a scrim, bright eyes beneath—
I learned want. Her fingers firm
against the neck and fretboard
of her Fender, head bowed
in reverence to her own
powerful hands, summoning song.
Capricorn Season
I watch the sky turn yellow
from the wrong angle, a glow—
hurricane warning or
sunrise. Why haven’t the birds
found the seed in the feeder?
How else can I serve
something small,
in faith that I’m enough?
My meditation teacher
says without desire, everything
is sufficient. I haven’t learned
not to vibrate with want,
even if my heart’s flicker
is only for bourbon or brown
butter ice cream. I fix my eyes
on the horizon to see
if it’s snowing, but
everything is soaked
in hazy hope. Symptomology
of winter. I can’t tell
if the parking lot next door
is paved with asphalt or
television static. I want
only this—
to be insatiable
and told not to want, to fail
in some semblance of balance.
Goddess, do not free me from
desire, teach me to want
only whatever this is. Show
me sated. Show me light.
Yucatán
I traded one black dog for another
my mother says, of the Rottweiler
she brought home from the shelter
after she'd peppered our front steps
with my father's clothes. She
was drinking & he'd cheated,
so we got a puppy, a round
bundle with a bark like a bird. Three
women & a dog, living
in The Feminist Safe House—
her name for the cove home
she reclaimed, painted the soft pink
of rose quartz. My sister & I
danced to the Indigo Girls while
mom taught us misandry—
men as enemy. We traveled
to Isla Mujeres, feasted on fresh
fish & papaya for breakfast, swam
in a local cenote. Liberated,
we climbed Chichén Itzá's 91 steps,
flexed our biceps at the apex,
chanting sisterhood is powerful
at mom's command. She snapped
photos to bring back, all of us
freckled, sated. On the return flight,
nestled in the middle seat, our mother
kissed our sun-bleached curls, saying:
We don't need men for anything. Not a damn thing.
Rage Hezekiah is a Cave Canem and MacDowell Fellow who earned her MFA from Emerson College. She is the recipient of the Saint Botolph Emerging Artist Award in Literature and was nominated for Best New Poets, 2017. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Fifth Wednesday, Hayden's Ferry Review, The Cape Rock, Salamander, Tampa Review, and West Branch, as well as other journals. Her writing is featured in various anthologies including Other Tongues: Mixed Race Women Speak Out, All We Can Hold: poems of motherhood, and Nasty Women Poets: An Anthology of Subversive Verse. You can find more of her work at ragehezekiah.com.