POETRY / The Spoils of Summertime / Khalypso / Writer of the Month
i can’t say much about the flowers,
only that they’d shriveled to tombs by the day
my heart was broken for a good second
time
the lime-colored foliage
starved & i wrote God so many apology letters
—futile bargains, incomplete proposals, please
Lord bring back the wind
love me enough
to let me breathe
without coughing up ash
i can’t open my eyes without the sun
slicing them into bloodless massacres
& listen God all I’m asking for
is a little forgiveness some
mercy for claiming my
father’s habits; his reckless need
to get high
& forget he lives
i haven’t been touched since
the cold came & the last time i was kissed
with any honesty, the crops on every lawn
& meadow were still tossing their pleasures
into the air &
as of yesterday,
i drove by the same fields
& all i could see for miles was dirt.
Khalypso is a Sacramento-based actor and poet. They are fat, black, neurodivergent, queer, and an agender badass. Their work can be found in Cosmonauts Avenue, Rigorous Journal, , and Shade Journal, as well as a few others. Their chapbook manuscript, THE HOTTENTOT LIGHTS THE GAS HERSELF, was a runner up for the 2018 Two Sylvias Chapbook Prize. They are the 2019 Sacramento Youth Poet Laureate and you can find them on Twitter at KhalypsoThePoet.