Photo by Anton Darius on Unsplash
—Title is a variation of Georgia Douglas Johnson’s “Your Voice Keeps Ringing Down the Day”
Just like an old teacher used to say, The bell
don’t dismiss you, I do, your voice permits
the evening to empty itself like a body, sick.
So quick the dark nearly rewinds itself.
When you ask me How was your day,
I nearly forget there was anything before
this, that the sun hitchhiked a path
to the other side of earth and melted
into the horizon like a half-globe
of butter. The beauty of the trees’
new dresses, lost. Now, your greeting
kisses my skin wet like helixes of steam
rising from a bath, and I understand
that to unravel is never a choice we make
for ourselves. When you say my name,
I am like the strand hanging from the sleeve
of an old sweater—I snag on the same
sound each night. Keep pulling, I will fall apart.
Taylor Byas is a Black poet and essayist. She currently lives in Cincinnati, Ohio where she is a second year PhD student and Albert C. Yates Scholar at the University of Cincinnati studying poetry. She is also a reader for both The Rumpus and The Cincinnati Review, and the Poetry Editor for FlyPaper Lit. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in New Ohio Review, The Journal, Glass Poetry, Borderlands Texas Poetry Review, Hobart, Pidgeonholes, The Rumpus, and others. She has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes, Best New Poets 2020, six Best of the Net nominations, and is the 1st Place Winner of the 2020 Poetry Super Highway Contest.