Elegy Where One Must Have an Acre
to harrow a grave.
I walk down
by the bottle tree,
its low hum quivering.
I have not been here before
where the cardinals whipple.
The old fence, my sandaled
feet ashen, hands trailing,
rust and honeysuckle
mill sulfur welts my nose,
mingles with the neighbor’s
burn barrel pepper clouds.
The trees are partial;
their rumors won't subside
their magnolia congregation
about these meeting rivers.
My feet splintered across
the train tracks,
a dingy white undershirt
left by an uncle
whose blood was sweet,
whose body fissured.
The highway median between us,
its yellow markings, a ruler
in the bosom of an old
engine. In grief,
one cannot help
but cross a line.
I had some questions
for the twin pines, splitting
a ditch in the front yard. A hole
where water once was. A history
of digging.
Self-Portrait as the Living
I work my body down the hall
to my case manager’s intrusion.
My limbs are histories. Food stamp renewals,
my highest level of education,
my excesses, needs; genealogy.
An uncle dead from [redacted], his grief
beating my breast. My last well visit—
hypertension. Heart disease.
The nurse adds, forever. Inheritance.
Tattoos. Birthmarks. All who reside in my
household. My file, bruised with fingerprints &
qualifiers. Baseline progress. Outcomes.
Ascent. The last time I saw my mother,
the smell of my father’s curls—lineage.
My body-as: When and Where I Enter.
My body-as: Never too sad to shake that ass.
Winsome and fleeting, the rolls on my back
a mast against subject and conviction,
my body as grace,
my body as petition,
my body leant against the sweet
tea dispenser of my favorite diner,
shirt soaking grease off the counter line.
My body-no-enemy;
on the floor of my kitchen
catching cool against my back:
all body & religion to me.
Shakeema Smalls is from Georgetown, South Carolina. Her work has been published in a variety of outlets including Honey Literary, Hayden’s Ferry, Emergent Literary, Tidal Basin Review, Root Work Journal, Radius Lit, Free Black Space, Vinyl Poetry and Prose, Michigan Quarterly Review, Fruit Journal, and Foglifter, among others. She is a Tin House Workshop and VONA alum. She was also a 2022 PEN Emerging Voices Fellow. She is the current Markus D. Manley Fellow and Poet-in-Residence at The Poetry Lab.