Sex

by Cydni Thompson

Daniel Shapiro

Shocked by my nipple in the mirror above the sink, I slept with socks and asked

Jehovah for a re-alignment as my body had become

the sound board in the backroom of the church with the stubborn knob.

What does Pastor think when pencil skirt ladies fan the spirit

into a tart froth, and do the ladies think at all before they yank my tights up

beneath my dress with snap and gentility? Now the other nipple’s gone

wild with conscience, having heard the siren of teeth and dreamt of the wet

lap called love. Everyone can smell me. In the parking lot, Dee’s putrid mother

shoves him for his dropped apple: You think you can eat that? Violence

slips the black purse from her shoulder. I can eat that. I once ate a strand

of my own hair because it was there and curled deep, like a dream or a finger.

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Cydni Thompson (she/her) is a MFA student at Queens College. She writes from Jamaica, Queens, and her poems can be found in Bear Review and Sunhouse Lit. She can be found on twitter @cydnit_poet.