Against Heaven
        double golden shovel with Sade and Belinda Carlisle

If gigglesoaked, Henny-leaned, Young M.A's OOOUUU sweat down to its nekkid ooh,
you ripen apart till tenderqueer innards drip and dangle from fuckboi halves then baby,
were you to waft my way, bright peach begging to cobbler, let heat do what it do—
mine gut-pent and wasted, sun born to sweet the orchard of you.

If forgiveness, uncoupled from the cross at our jugular, was a song we could know,
you and I against innocence in a red karaoke duet of fessed mess then what
were slights to scar the verses, cheats to bloody the bridge? The chorus, that's
mine: There is a balm in Gilead. Sticky resin turned perfume, and we've mucked a grove's worth.

I clown for you. Two-step to trap shea-buttered, lavender-spliffed with you and ooh
wouldn't we get swept out this Apollo, ancestors booing our bit's thin heaven?
Want a blue blaze snuffed in every realm. To misabolish and refuse your rule is
to pawn my only heirloom, blood for Sandman's broom. I toggle fool-to-fool for a

go at mercy, December fists blooming to rainbow strobes, dancefloor a place
to practice mesh and lace and rope and strap, our binding, our betting on
Heaven as our circling set to crash, ripping pavement up to rewild Earth.

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Copyright © 2022 Kemi Alabi All rights reserved
from Black Warrior Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission