by Aliyah Cotton
It was hopscotch and scraped knees yellow monkey bars and
hands rubbed raw hands that knew exactly the weight of a pinecone
and what it meant to the fallen thing to be noticed and held and thrown
back down again and it was not caring that the grilled cheese
was burnt the charred crust caught between teeth sneakers that lit up
the dark like sirens cicadas floating at the edge of a swimming pool
trash bags that flew proud as kites in wind that was still new
and squinting one eye shut to gaze into the navel of the moon to ask
her are you an innie or an outie? and the promise not to tell a soul
Aliyah Cotton is a queer poet of color from Reston, Virginia. She earned her MFA from Boston University, where she was a recipient of the Robert Pinsky Global Fellowship. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Adroit, Cortland Review, Emerson Review, and several others. She is a 2024 Gregory Djanikian Scholar and was nominated for the 2024 Best of the Net Anthology.