by Issa M. Lewis

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

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The weight of his gunmetal tongue was staggering,
relentless. A projectile of marked velocity, propelled 
by an explosion—in this case, uncontrolled. I had deflected— 
turned a vulnerable shoulder to his trigger finger, left a strand 
of hair that must have tugged in just the wrong way— 
just enough—or not nearly—depending on which of us you asked. 
The sex we never had made him twitch. Someone told me later 
it was because he liked me so much 
that he wanted me to vanish. That he wanted to do the vanishing. 

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Issa M. Lewis is the author of Infinite Collisions (Finishing Line Press, 2017) and Anchor (Kelsay Books, 2022). She is the 2013 recipient of the Lucille Clifton Poetry Prize and a runner-up for the 2017 Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize. Her poems have previously appeared or are forthcoming in Rust+Moth, Thimble, North American Review, South Carolina Review, The Banyan Review, and Panoply, amongst others. She lives in West Michigan.

by Issa M. Lewis

The weight of his gunmetal tongue was staggering.

A projectile of marked velocity, propelled

by an explosion—in this case, uncontrolled. I had deflected—

turned a shoulder to his trigger finger, left a strand

of hair that must have tugged in just the wrong way—

just enough—or not nearly—depending on which of us you asked.

The sex we never had made him twitch. Someone told me later

it was because he liked me so much

that he wanted me to vanish. That he wanted to do the vanishing.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Issa M. Lewis is the author of Infinite Collisions (Finishing Line Press, 2017). A runner-up in the 2017 Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize and 2013 winner of the Lucille Clifton Poetry Prize, her poems have appeared in journals such as Jabberwock, Pearl, and Naugatuck River Review.