Nikia Chaney: 5 Poems

going to

going to spell h.o.m.e. like koolaid red and slippery but not
pulsing or heart in palm or the rat tat
of flesh against wall but k o o then sugar so thick
it vibrates your teeth like home like rosè or rosie a thing
my dirt skin can never be because it don't need to be and home
is even wrong four letters the o sound a short horn
that puffs it way past the door to close off the wind when it
should be long an ahh an uh even e slow as the slide of thick
glass to waiting red water splash flittering round the handle and
that's the word right there the knob in knuckles the cold in palm and
the drink hugging and stroking the back of your neck
like fingers so thirsty for touch they only taste you best
wipe off your mouth i want that i got that going on I take that
and write it out in wet                    letters across           the porch like an effigy fat
                    hereness in my mouth
                             openness in my neck cause if i don't then what's

        the use of sweet drinks and holding on what's

​                         the real reason for              relief that pitcher on the wall

        ​​shining open saying thirsty girl you thirsty         yes close the door

​                         ​​or open it and walk through you belong here

                  you arrived set it down
                                                     drink it
​                                                                       sleep

but her (again)

​but her — (again) tell her that she has no arms — no want — rather her ripples of math unfold
rapidly to cover the clear confidence of her impossibility — there ain’t a weaning here — nor loss

​of appetite — unzip her ribs and step over each one of her clay steins — ​scuffle with the patches

​of her struggling — her small defeats — the reach around she leaves hanging on the bed to flutter
with the added finespun to her levees — the unmade sheet — the post about cornrows and
blankets — ​her nails just long enough to curve round the knots and margins to pretend that

​this façade is not wanting her back — make her thirsty — make her braided fancy — ​recite to her

​the news of the revolution humming so glitzy in the want of it you both start to swoon — sing it
then and feed her arms and candy to untwist each strand of her with your whole body like
you really are a silhouette of shea butter and she cannot sprout alone just laying there — ​make

​her add up — ​one piece slowly unraveled to one flash via the sob and shake (i.e) the cushions on

​the couch under her spine — she is joining in slowly she is smiley and queued, a being of touch
plaited — come — come you — come here you — and define wage war — calculate her — then knock
her down — ​the breastbone like so much silky dust caught in the room’s quiet breeze — the relief

& sometimes I don’t even like

​& sometimes I don’t even like the little boy
those skinny arms and needy ways of

a sunken chest in a grown out fade

“I choke these fools” @10 years old and
desperate so desperate to stay over at my house a

little longer he falls asleep in the backseat as
I pass men at the metal doors grass too broke

to grow in all this blot plate of brick boxes the housing
authority deigned to maintain a kind

of service and corrective aid callous barbs
that beg thank you because hey it's not a bench

or a shelter or the laid down passenger
seat of a car and now his mother on the phone

spelling out e.v.i.c.t. . . because of trouble @ her
house now with that other authority though she has two

children two part time jobs two crumbling left feet
back bent @31 where if I could I

would take her in my home
and this time sequester

her straighten her out with cool irons
and zumba and pottery or alvin ailey cause couldn’t she dance

at one time @17 wasn’t there butterflies and didn’t
we bond those years ago over the ways

a body can stretch and move out away from everything
its ever known but she says

no it is too late for that the three day notice already
came and there is no time left but to go back home

now time to go home now wake up now baby its time
to go home and just try to sleep lay down

and sleep try anyway don't be sad
I promise to take you swimming again

next weekend.

being

​                            & being as they
                   assume the woman
         part is underbelly doughy                fluid filled
         sacs of little    tiny mewling things    pappy
structure bound by echo you’d think

         that she’d sleep here sheets with crumbs
                  all her limbs stretched
                  ​out to the doorway
         or else tucked under
                                    ​ steel burka bars and of course shuddering

yet the lining of her
         silhouette peers
                  over the tossed city like sunrise there are
spears here and twine
                  in each of her fists
         and she is awake ready       to quake down
         on that body the silence
                           ​before the throw

                                             I thought the boy inside would drive me
                           ​gift me his shield chestwood curse word
                  stratified between the folds
                                     hoard and army
                           enough to make plates of this
                                                       labor a wassail
                                             ​of servantless muster

                  and she got down
in the kitchen                   like it wasn’t nothing    ​mended our feet
                                     and showed him all up

a monster

​A monster seas through the twilight slosh to pluck
the small figures by their midriffs skywards

to unlock a promise
of lightning cleansing a radiation rainblessed with all
that spit     tumbling
out dripping           salt        all gold                    all steam

                   this monster’s need so blind in the sound
                   track of the forgetfulness slumber the way windows should

stretch their             piercing        seams out
      to eat ocean
                                       your voice
                  saying back your      words or mama’s           in          your own way each   syllable
                                                                   splashing
on the toasted wet rock the press

​         of being known on the shoulder the legs bowed in the small thunder
                                               of standing

​or      the        name of                         water

when
The monster turns flesh colored and warm to ruckled origami gogira angry prehistoric bent
thing
the breaking down of self for if a body
is used too wrongly or feared or left too long to rot unseen then it
                            might it          ought it          not it          too
          rise in the furor to gather all
                                                the parishioners   colleagues    from their fleeing

to open its mouth         dangle them           in front of its own        black twisting tongue
to       hem      and      stamp          and storm
and say           well at least      think
                               politely

                     ​you know it offends me that you still can’t pronounce my name

Nikia Chaney is the author of the poetry collection us mouth (University of Hell Press, 2018) and the collection of short science fiction stories Three Walking (Bamboo Dart Press, 2021). She has served as Inlandia Literary Laureate (2016-2018). Her poetry has been published in Sugarhouse Review, 491, Iowa Review, Vinyl, Pearl, Welter, and Saranac. Her memoir, ladybug, is upcoming from Inlandia in 2022.