by Angelique Zobitz

It's #tbt! Enjoy this great one from SWWIM Every Day's archives!

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Girl-child, power-in-waiting, Revolution,
this world will try to cleave you
in half, reach inside—
lay waste, leave you
a bloody mess of seed,
pulp, carved out meat—
pick your bones
attempt to harness your sweet
for a world full
of eager carrion birds.

Transfigurate:
flower, fruit, fire—
unfurl an inferno
curling coils down
your devil back.
Scorch them with your flame
tongue. Remind them you
predate evangelism;
leave them ashes,
burn them down—
teach them our bodies
are best left alone.

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Angelique Zobitz (she/her/hers) is the author of the chapbooks Burn Down Your House (Milk & Cake Press) and Love Letters to The Revolution (American Poetry Journal). Her first book, Seraphim, is forthcoming from CavanKerry Press in April 2024. She is a 2022-2023 Jake Adam York Prize and Philip Levine Prize finalist, multi-nominated for the Best of the Net, Best New Poets, and the Pushcart Prize. Her work appears in The Journal, Sugar House Review, Yemasse, Obsidian: Literature & Arts of the African Diaspora, The Adirondack Review, ANMLY, and many others. She can be found at www.angeliquezobitz.com and on Twitter and Instagram: @angeliquezobitz.

by Angelique Zobitz

Girl-child, power-in-waiting, Revolution, 

this world will try to cleave you

in half, reach inside—

lay waste, leave you

a bloody mess of seed,

pulp, carved out meat—

pick your bones

attempt to harness your sweet

for a world full

of eager carrion birds.

Transfigurate:

flower, fruit, fire—

unfurl an inferno

curling coils down

your devil back.

Scorch them with your flame

tongue. Remind them you

predate evangelism;

leave them ashes,

burn them down—

teach them our bodies

are best left alone.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Angelique Zobitz has recently been published in So to Speak: a feminist journal of language + art, Junto Magazine, and Geeky Press' Hoosier Lit Anthology, with additional work forthcoming in Sugar House Review. She lives in the Midwest with her husband and daughter, and their two rescue dogs.