Ode to the Dirt

I walk barefoot in my grandmother’s

yard to be soiled in your purity.

Mother of land oceans cannot

swallow, creator of town and tomb.

You sky for the dead,

ground for the living.

You allow everything to have

a backbone. When I hold you

I am praying with my hands open.

You fall through the spaces in between

my fingers & take the shape of what

the air bends you into.

Here with my feet submerged in the

all of you, you have a way of speaking

to me. Telling me that the

earth & I are like sisters.

Our skin the hue of both

mud & water.

---

Bad Luck

 

“You got a roommate

he’ll hear what we do.

It’s only awkward if you’re fucking him too”

– Frank Ocean

 

When I heard you

 

making her orgasm

 

I thought

 

maybe you came

 

home drunk                             again,

 

stumbled into the

 

wrong dark room

& fell into a

 

hole you couldn’t

 

tell wasn’t                    me.

---

Azia Armstead is a poet based in Richmond, Virginia. She currently studies English at Virginia Commonwealth University and is also a fellow of The Watering Hole. Her work has been published by JoINT. Literary Magazine.