Maneuver

“I am intrigued by the way we (as humans and especially women, but even more
especially women of color) are asked to maneuver in such narrowly carved spaces.”
Remica Bingham Risher – Soul Culture

It’s all in the thickness, sis, the ample
hips that can’t help but sashay,
weighted shoulders that carr
even when our arms are emptied,

how we press, push, pile ourselves between
walls and wedges we did not build,
squeeze through locked gates, doors,
our bones collapsing˗˗ a shape-shifting shimmy
reassembling upon passing through prisms,
seeking the out-of-doors.
[repeat]
[repea]
[repe]
[rep]
[re]
[r]
[ ]
Once we reach the othered side,
           we sprinkle our bodies with earth-womb,
                       seek lightning to cauterize wounds,
                                   sprinkle rain gently to heal,
                                                                                                             all the goddamned bruising...

Tamara J. Madison is a writer, poet, editor, and instructor in Florida. She is a MFA graduate of New England College and a Hedgebrook, Ucross, KHN, and Anaphora Literary Arts fellow. Her work has been reviewed and published in various journals and literary magazines including Callaloo, Killens Review, The Amistad, Poetry International, Cider Press Review, and World Literature Today and is forthcoming in Obsidian. Her most recent full-length poetry collection, Threed, This Road Not Damascus, is published by Trio House Press. She is currently working on a new collection of poetry based on five generations of her ancestry.