Jasmine Reid

blue

 

 

 neck on a wire wrung day.

swollen wind, piping muscle, dour chest—

the sun’s morning breath caught occluded.

oppressively white clouds on the wrong

lord’s dawn. always the wrong side

of whether. I weather woman myself

to sleep. foreground a field of blue

with all my well-informed false.

become blue. balloon neck bloom.

string knot on a saltwater wicked

hydrangea. soft now with

swell. everything false good. just like

first light. a greedy choke catching

all my breath. all my un-hearted blood.

all my red gone blue

Pink

 

 

flush

 

out of sleep like a nail-lacquered wand

 

swatch my swift dripping hue

 

of the dream          not the dream

 

i am colored    cupped time

 

my every little speck of rise    flee

 

fire on the roof of my glitter mouth

 

my pink house of lyre blood

 

i am a blood-liar in blown glass

 

i scream in the sea of sleep

 

flight or flung            i fancy the new day

 

swilled by its chime

 

i am wind-whipped

 

i am no brighter

 

the morning is a fantasy i chemical choke

 

my mother is not my mother is not

 

the goddess of glitter

 

 

i am pink & no one’s daughter

 

bright out of the bottle

 

i am brave because i am drying

wonderment & soft armament

 

 

swell of the city

fountain gush & ever-slap

across stone, soothed stone

buildings flare up — inflections

of the infectious we

 

wild in the mouth with the buzz of bees

a singular man

a grave, motherless color

a shadow, a clink setting over the street

interrogative prick

at my origin of place & sex

yes, i look like a girl because i am                                                  (i am, i am)

 

&, later, water, green

& me in the alive

alighting leaf

from the starry hair of trees

sweet nursery

cloud i pour under

 

spine to the bark of my elder

grass & leaves lean & flicker in wind

like i do, & the wood, it is solid

so solid

biography

JASMINE REID is a twice trans poet of flowers. She is the author of the chapbook Deus Ex Nigrum, winner of the 2018 Honeysuckle Press Chapbook Contest, selected by Danez Smith. An MFA candidate at Cornell University and recipient of fellowships from Poets House and Jack Jones Literary Arts, her work has been published or is forthcoming in Muzzle Magazine, Apogee, the Shade Journal, and Paper Darts, among others. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominated poet, Jasmine was born and raised in Baltimore, MD, and is currently based in Ithaca, NY. Find her at reidjasmine.com