[how would I know the difference?]

the white line looks like a string to untampen the damp tampened thing. 
But it’s only a road. Only simple division of the black Carolina
tar. Only a white mark for which side to rub rubber. 

& Megabus isn’t a double-decker ship 
bleeding students South for the semester. 
Only a chamber people cough in. 

night turns like bud rolled in the already steamy room.
I can climb out if I need to. Surprisingly, no blood comes 
when the white lines are released
for the station’s parking lot. 

but who’s going to pick me up?

[but who’s going to pick me up?]

In this whale
father calls church, I feel a new wet
spread like the red of the pew. 
For the closing song,

we rise like boats 
Momma sees the spot
blending like war vespers. I look to Father 
but it’s Momma who takes my hand

& sludges me through the belly of the middle aisle. 
Wiping red, I wonder why Momma ain’t tell me ‘bout 
lady’s leaky and conspicuous potlucks.

[lady’s leaky and conspicuous potlucks]

As in the anatomy of my chin: a cartoon 
of matrilineal stubble. Shut back in the back 
room, trigger paper pulls black 

roots gloating in wax. Girlbeard, splinters like two 
women sharing the same man. Biweekly 
this perennial mowing uproots

daydreams of other inventions for hiding 
hairy. And who lied that girls don’t sprout 
up undesired? Hair heirs an error. Me

dug out on my back. lily ripped 
& red at the root, protecting stupid beauty. 

Jalynn Harris is a poet, educator, and book designer from Baltimore, MD.  She founded the indy press, SoftSavagePress, for the sole purpose of promoting works by Black people. She earned her M.F.A from the University of Baltimore. Her first poetry chapbook, Exit Thru the Afro, is a future museum of queer Black histories in verse.