i’ve slept with many monsters
woken up beside ogres big fangs flashing
ready to gobble me up whole
wondering where the man i loved went
there were nights i spent hiding
wrapped in quilts stuttering to officers
that i did not want to file a police report
we are women. we speak the language of agony
when did you know he was past rosaries
sellin the gun? he’d sell a piece of that boy if he could
string him up high start the bidding
did you press palms to what organ beat inside him
wonder how God wonder why
did you say eva say enuff baby enuff?
tmstringfellow (Tara Stringfellow) is a poet, novelist, and an attorney, originally from both Memphis, Tennessee and Okinawa, Japan. Third World Press published her first collection of poetry entitled More than Dancing in 2008. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize, her poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in Best Emerging Poets of Illinois, Best of the Net Anthology, Jet Fuel Review, Minerva Rising, Women’s Arts Quarterly, Apogee Journal, Transitions Magazine, Linden Avenue Literary Journal, Chicago Magazine, decomp, and Prompt, among others. The author was Northwestern University’s first MFA graduate in both poetry and prose. Signed with HSG Agency in New York, she is currently completing her first novel she’s calling Memphis.
