Sestina for a domme
Maneo Mohale
Once. Once ago: I swallowed a blood-blossom
& inked myself a love dipped in revelry. Everythere
we puffed like owls, brick-backed as this new song of myself
un-harmonied & honeyed as the past.
If I gave it to you, where would you tuck my tongue?
From the maybe-vista of your pocket, teach it how to say yes
twice: teach it doubly to say please:yes
Ignore my shyness. This dance is double-blossom
spun. Does shame govern me? yes—Send your tongue
to me regardless, to be a poem. There,
let hunger be tethered as an anchor, passed
between the triptych shadows of myself
three-paned & bright. Let me sing myself
tongued into your mouth. Let every song say yes
to you. Soaked as I am in the past,
I’ve been known to write a blossom
into blood-blooming, yet everythere
in the nation of my mind, the ray of your tongue
forges me open, pens me anew. Tongued
in a new language, blood beats itself
bruised, rushing to you—delicious as wine. Words shed their
skins quickly when you talk. When you say yes
cities of doubt crumble into blossoms.
Lovelight, I’m trying to talk to you, but the past
is a gag, slick with sometimes-silence. Passed
down, hereditary. History sucks as a segue,
is not the corridor of blossoms
we were promised in school, consoling ourselves
with white pages & lunchboxes sealed in promise. Yes,
our mothers will never know us like this. There
is no country safe enough for this word—there
could never be. Who could ever defend the border of the past?
Please. Let me be a river of yes
a prayer in black tongue
an ocean of myself:
a many-bladed blossom.
Make me a tongue.
Show me myself:
flesh gated by teeth & promises—bright as blood.
Featured at the Red Wheelbarrow on 17 February 2022