My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Page 88

I Enjoy the Act of Undoing
when I catch you staring at the bracelets at my wrists, turquoise
tinkles, watch flashing: “fleet the time carelessly as they did
in the golden days”. You are a golden day I never had.
My best friend asked you first, and now you ask me. Faithless.
What if I took off all the bracelets, so all you could see was the scent
of my skin? What if this dress was next, off my shoulders like silt?
What if I didn’t stop there and kept peeling: clavicle to navel, silk viscera
and skinning. What if I split hairs and atoms until I became undone

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BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE

unwoman, became feckless reaction, blinding
and cruel, leaving your shadow burnt 
to the rubble? Word spreads, spills like petroleum.
Heart arrested, small town. This is no Hiroshima.