Amplify Poets of Color, Day 22

Guts, an excerpt

by Jane Wong

I enter a room.
A cat vomits as if to say

welcome home. Scattered
bones on the floor,

tiles of fur and fever:
welcome. Outside, the parks

are rinsed clean. Grass sprays
across my window.

This clean violence
for the Green and Livid.

·

Nothing I say leaves
this room. Not a foot,

not a single verb.
This room is meant

to be a cage to swing
sweetly in. Arm in

arm, slow scythe of
each doorway expanding

with each breath I hold in
until I can’t.

Remember, what you can’t
see can hurt you.

I will stay here,
getting fat in the eyes.

From OVERPOUR, published by Action Books. Copyright © 2016, Jane Wong.

Most Poetry will post a poem by a poet of color, selected by our members, each day through the month of July.