I Dreamt I Saw Two Black Girls Kissing in Church
& i heard a door inside my chest heave open
it sounded like a storm returning
to nurse green the dryness
the drought had abandoned here
& this is the kind of narrative we will not need
to soften later
& i guess it is easier to stay alive
when you are not holding an accusation
that always comes unbidden
carrying erotemes that only crave answers
of burning flesh
& when you are free to swallow a mouthful
of whomever your body takes home
to go looking for something sweet
and soft to sink your teeth into
& not wake up with bruises
where your name should be
maybe this communion of ungendered bodies
is what it means to say grace
& this is something no baptism can free us from
but the girls are worshipping each other’s hands
they are going home and taking me with them
& outside
a statue of Jesus is holding out his arms
Precious Arinze is a Nigerian poet, essayist, and author of the chapbook The Hope of Floating Has Carried Us So Far, selected by Chris Abani and Kwame Dawes for the New-Generation African Poets Series (African Poetry Book Fund), 2021. Precious Arinze is a Poetry Editor for OlongoAfrica and a Poetry Reader at Up The Staircase Quarterly. Their works have appeared in Brittle Paper, Lolwe, Arts and Africa, Agbowo, The Republic Journal, Boston Review, Electric Literature, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Exposition Review, and Berlin Quarterly, among others. Author photo by Dandelion Eghosa.
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