Akhim Yuseff Cabey

BENEATH THE DRAGONBLOOD TREE

is where I can be found fevering
(if but one of them dares a return)
for the main sequence of her starry mouth—black
as this here ink theorized to be the end
of all stellar evolution. the principle law of her
passion opposes wounds yesterday affixed
around my head, wrists, ribs, and ankles
by a republic that curses yet accrues

so much torrid liquid between my legs
just to prove we are aliens after all
delivered here as water trapped beneath the skin
of meteors flung across an occluded cosmos.
our sex remains the slow violent carving
of earth’s ugly face. still, I’m silenced by hands
reached into the grand canyons of our climax. come
hither forefingers nicking final tastes—

last licks before the big blast off
to new worlds we’ve already been to
and back. our moans and poems the frozen
dark rivers of their final destination. I am not
however left alone here in the shade
of muscularly named trees. rather, I bask
in the smoldering aftermath of her
dying as stars do !10! to begin again.

A Pushcart Prize-winning Black author, AKHIM YUSEFF CABEY’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Callaloo, Salamander, The Florida Review, Shenandoah, Indiana Review, The Sun Magazine, Puerto Del Sol, the minnesota review, and elsewhere. A six-time recipient of the Ohio Arts Council’s Individual Excellence Award, he is originally from the Bronx, NY and now lives in Columbus, Ohio, where he advocates for the relationship between mental health and bodybuilding. He can be found on Instagram @the_fit_poet.