There’s a man walking through my poem, 

and suddenly, he is surrounded by brown women’s 

bodies that make no space for him. Their breasts are as full 

as their hearts, the dark hairs on their stomach thrive 

and grow in the presence of his discomfort. 

You cannot blame a poet for what the people in her poem 

do and these voices are haunted by the things 

they have never said. They have been feeding

fear for years rather than their own need for

language and now they cannot stop

speaking and truths will not stop 

thundering. Why don’t you try to feel something with us? 

They screech at him rolling their hips to a music he 

cannot keep up with. No, there is no way I can write 

enough about these brown women that walk through his city 

which can never grow big enough to satisfy. And I won’t lie it is 

delightful to see how much they petrify, how comically 

he tries to pacify. You see you cannot blame a poet 

for what the people in her poem do, and these women, 

they are chanting a fevered realisation, they are going to 

eat him alive.