To You Who Are Joining the Chorus

My future hummingbird,                              my lima bean, 
                        my other heart within,
                                                my Good Night Moon, 
            my tethered kite, my too soon daughter 
                                                            of larger seas, awe awaits
            us like a dogeared book.
I have found God     in all the wrong people, 
                                                            a man with music in his teeth
            and wind in his eyes,
                                                a blue friend clicking
    like an upturned beetle
                                                                        on a slick bathroom floor,
                                    in a suitcase full of hair dye 
            and love poems to the road
                                                            packed for trips        to somewhere, anywhere else,
                        before looking in the mirror            of a rehab’s bathroom.
Love any way. Ride 
                                    the truck that drives us 
                                                            down back roads, thick 
            with kudzu, sparked
                                    by sunflowers and tiger lilies,         stretched like forever           
below the mare's tails                     of trailing cirrus clouds. 
There are spaces between my words 
                                                which can only be sung by you.

 

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Malaika King Albrecht is serving as the inaugural Heart of Pamlico Poet Laureate. She's the author of four poetry books. Her most recent book is The Stumble Fields (Main Street Rag 2020) Her book What the Trapeze Artist Trusts (Press 53) won honorable mention in the Oscar Arnold Young Award and was a finalist in 2012 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Her chapbook Lessons in Forgetting (Main Street Rag) was a finalist in the 2011 Next Generation Indie Book Awards and received honorable mention in the Brockman Campbell Award She’s the founding editor of Redheaded Stepchild, an online magazine that only accepts poems that have been rejected elsewhere. She lives in Ayden, N.C. on Freckles Farm with her family and is a yoga instructor, Reiki practitioner, and equine specialist in mental health and learning.