Naima Woods

Do not make bones at me // I are soonly calcified // I are knowing
of death and of burial // making your spells // into mush words

remember how to incant this // I are not black in my father’s image //
even though // his makes my only blackness // I are filled with black //

with cartilage // skeleton loose dancing // skeleton heavy under all that tissue // pink and ribboned with fat // I are trending // towards something else //

some dust something disloyal // Try to witch a way back // not to him // his x-ray narratives // take witch mush and burn it charcoal // eat it in gallons // I are finding

the blackness // unjointed from his bones I are making this body // remember
how // I are not fileting my father // not needing his ribs to read // my own

Naima Yael Woods is an educator and writer living in the countryside of southern New Mexico. She is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee and a TENT Residency Fellow. She has attended workshops with The Home School and Winter Tangerine. New work is published or forthcoming from Glittermob, jubilat, Apogee, Anthropoid and elsewhere.