"The Laughing Cinder Block" by Marlanda Dekine

They call one bulldagger.
I heard them say she spreads women’s legs that's all

she does, but I know her. She builds
entire worlds where their mouths cannot go,

their eyes cannot perceive.
What they wonder is who she fucks

and how they are going to have more children
in the world, and there is more to loving a woman.

I know because I hold them two inside.
An elder called the bisexual one greedy,

and we all laughed at her small imagination.
Her hands mortared me together.

Them two made me part of a house
to hold back the winds and water for a century,

keep them safe whether hurricane
or one of them come knocking at their door,

and because the family loves a corpse,
we will be cremated into ash and return as blocks

calling out for a love like theirs to hold.
The only thing that hears

them two sex are concrete and coal fly,
and neither one will tell.

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Marlanda Dekine called us from Georgetown, SC.

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