By Dawn Lundy Martin, from Good Stock Strange Blood, which was published in August by Coffee House Press. Martin’s previous book, Life in a Box Is a Pretty Life, won the 2016 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry.
She had been half made with real white blood.
— Gertrude Stein
Or.
She been made
real with half
white blood.
In keeping
with tradition
sun blackening
continued, shoe
got nothing
on the field hand.
If there is a theme
it invades,
under our tongues
like poison seeds,
and we forget
our names.
