Bluest Nude by Ama Codjoe

Author:Ama Codjoe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Milkweed Editions

I’m fourteen and the smell of singed hair

circles me like the halo of a pre-Renaissance

Madonna. Loss already on my face.

A summer crush holds out his fingers

for the other boys to smell. The next day

I choose a cute outfit: shorts with tiny

repeating fl wers. I braid my hair

into a wreath of juniper and dandelion.

There’s an iteration of myself with gills

and fins, who my twin brother knew

as well as he knew himself, then

there’s me with petals on my thighs

and in my hair, fl wers even inside.

The untrained eye can mistake yarrow

for fl wer or blue-eyed grass for weed.

Facing the mirror, irises grow wide

across the field of myself. They’re so good

at making use of holes. I want to balance

pitchers of seawater on my head. I want

to be more like my eyes. I carry holes

and purses and a picture of me, age six,

Easter bonnet tied under my chin, shins

grazed by bluebells, a steeple I can hear

beyond the frame. An image I’ve held

in another’s retelling. The scentless girl

I was has a fragrance I recognize

in the mirror. The girl and I bring

our rose-perfumed wrists to the flesh

below the ears. Flesh that will one day be eaten

but not consumed. What is covered now by cloth

and petals will be taken wholly. A tongue,

feeling like many, will coax woman out of us.

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