by Daschielle Louis

fuck.

            good girl hides mud     good girl hides unmelting cheese between fingers and exits the back door                  back when mama’s back was flexible  back to school with another box of crayons                        color picture    girl colored      in textbooks    in photographs they hung your daddy and ate the fruit            they hung her daddy and drank the blood        drinks 2-4-1 at el patron                        step over dead body shot         shots    shot     down shots      shots to chest            in throat          out back          between fingers the bullet holes pass   the tequila passes like urine     the neighbors dog eats through the holes            through the meat         through the blood        on the back porch the neighbor asks if the possum in their yard belonged to you        you possum      you digging in the empty pool to find china           to buy back the tea cup you broke when the mud made it slip                        broke the dial on the telephone so you would never have to call 911        call 911                        call for help because grandma isn’t breathing   grandma isn’t here for them anymore  the kids with the holes in their backs            with the breathing leaving their backs call for yahweh to stop the pain eating at her gums     pray for snowfall         pray for bluffs   pain in watching          there’s pain in the dogs crying for more hole cheese    for mama crying for grandma   crying to mud covered over body with hole in breasts         holes for grandma        holes for good girl        get inside car    get inside with him      friend   no        dad trusts no one         no air in car will make good girl come in            melting blood to the sidewalk             walk until back ache    good girl covered in mud         mud girl covered in good         mama reminds me that the food i give the dogs is food they will never return.

Daschielle Louis

Daschielle Louis is a Haitian American poet, writer, and graphic artist from South Florida: her work uses magical realism to examine blackness, womanhood, Haitian culture and migration. Her literary work is housed on her website daschiellelouis.com.