It’s Getting Hot in Here So Take Off
All Your Clothes

All day men shout like lizards, sharp-tongued

in the desert for salty flies. The sky’s the boss

of us: I can’t spit when I try. In the heat, less

is everything: respect, power, mouths, sex.

All of it is taken from me. I step into a volcano

& melt like the witch I am. I want to be flawed

all the way to bed. Wake up, flawless.

Subjected, flawless. Swallowed my tongue

for communion. I mean, volcano.

I erupt with a mouth like a bossy

eagle. I made my bed so I have sex

in it. My body gets more for less

& O! When I say less

I mean as in classically beautiful, flaws

spilling out of my mouth like sexy

moon rocks. I cut out men’s tongues &

I sharpen myself & I’m scary & I’m bossy:

I’m the chick who raises snakes like a volcano

spews its desert under pressure. Volcanic

in the streets & volcanic in the bed. Less

kitchenware, more potent libidos bossing

men around. All day they shout, flaws

on my crystal. All day I feel their tongues.

It’s literal, it isn’t sexual.

Okay maybe it is about sex.

What passes for magic. How a sleeping volcano

is still a volcano. How with my tongue

I turn on a light like God & I have less

privilege than God. How even with flaws

under these clothes I could be the boss

of you without them. Magic. Boss

you all night long. & of course I mean sex

but I mean teaching, too. Black girl rage, flawless.

This diamond my diamond in a volcano’s

hot, lost city. & I do not mean helpless.