My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Page 92

This is What Pornography Leaves Out
the first time I saw your eyes unguarded you were sneaking a look
at me — the freckles golden in your feline, olive eyes, your chinaman 
whiskers black against smooth white skin, plump cheeks, heartshaped birthmarks red & hot like the forehead of a fevered newborn.
I saw in your eyes: I was your lover but also your mother & you
were the lost boy, feet bowed-out with scurvy, broken compass,
no ship, lost sailor, bars were your mermaid sirens & I could feel you
moving inside me low-tide, trying to make me love you by making love  
to me, taking solace in this womb because the last time you were safe 
you were inside a woman & every moment after birth has been hell 
& no matter how much you false-laugh, I couldn’t forget that lost look of a child 
that would come over you when your whole body jerked it’s salt release, just

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hold me, your eyes would beg and how sad the low-whine fear of a toddler
alone in a Hong Kong market, his family left him, see how quickly he cries.