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joey de jesus

 

the home invasion

 

to think of trapped me—pupa beneath back-feeling,
fallen tree into back meat, it happened like this:
in a tantrum of hands, I became tiny,
imperfect—ink-dark heart decomposing
into fungi.

I whistled louder names—star, seventeen.
the hands had into sump clack pulled
my sentences—low, devoid of light,
the silt-me he was body none.
blessed tongue, spring in the tongue.

in my finest year I thought,
let no such slab hooligan me hostage.
deep is my weeping now. no,
dope is my wanton now.

they rebuilt the story against me as news,
a getting around. but here is the truth:
in the brinkplane bless of husk slush
o voice washed over me a river feel,
said, the land will soon stop giving

 

 

 

 

 

Joey De Jesus is a Bronx-born, gen-y queer Nuyorican poet. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Barrow Street, Beloit Poetry Journal, Devil’s Lake, Drunken Boat, Guernica, RHINO and elsewhere. He is poetry editor at Apogee Journal. He lives in Brooklyn.