VINYL POETRY

Volume 10, July 2014

BIRDIE
Keith S. WilsonView Contributor’s Note

World gurning championship

can an ugly child do equations?
in middle school i was round
and dark as a punctuation mark.
they wouldn’t let me be

other things: nobody listened. was it worse
than suddenly being mexican? igualmente,
nigger. what is the arabic word for struggle?

because some people are just born
unsettled and i have dreamed
of train tracks folding me worthless
as a penny against the dive of sky.

you do not get to judge my salt water
taffy when i do not say myself. my tongue
is riveted to a tree like the pink

of a catfish being curled from its skin.
when i think of suicide
bombs i focus on the smile of the brown

finger against the finally red.