it's Tuesday...

let's read some poems.

Naming what has risen

by Camille T. Dungy

Why not a crocus from this bulb? Why not the purple

of bees’ lust so that, in honey, she might taste something

good? Under skin, purple is a private taste, closer

to the blood of her tongue, closer to the blood

she chokes on when she’s gasping, to the clot

behind her blackened eye. The heated force

that slammed her shin, that pushed bone

from the bone, that arched her but did not

approach caress, is another kind of lust. Spring:

a madness of grappling. Isn’t that what she sees outside

every window? And inside? Nothing unique going on.

— meanwhile, my favorite exhibit thus far this year remains open at the Hirsshorn Gallery in DC.