ROBIN REID DRAKE

dough[i]

redraw the bow,       breathe,
smile,                          aim
for the first few rows. we no longer know
indifference. stand center stage, dim
lit in pastel gels. cast in the role of relief,

we are quick
to accommodate. comfort is a constant
for which we ride, skirt
skill, learn to GameShark the day,
to float away.

our poached postures, new
attitudes, belie us but we are still
bewildering, ambiguous in our baby-
faced boy/girl-ishness.

we need space to feed
fantasy, to air our all
its burps and bubbles, occasional
high sighs of release. dangerous

dough, made of milky myth-stuff;
we are Jigglypuff, Mocchi,
Majiin Buu too— bulky, born
anew, humming echos
of a sleep-song.

molting into soft shell, making
room for never enough;
we feel it filling, swell
with this belled body, flesh on the edge
of expire. Something slides
out, new bruised fruit— we learn
what it takes to slip
from sensitive skins.

Hungry Ghost
(by Hurray for the Riff Raff)

[when performer chooses to do this song, they must memorize lyrics. Segarra choreographs this moment in her throat and it is there that performer must center themselves. it is difficult to forget the bulk of a body, but it is absolutely necessary for this to land. performer must pool their entirety in the back of a mouth. leave nothing for the eyes to let loose. heaviest when hungry, let the weight of this epoch cover you in castor oil or something similarly medicinal. let it soak, stick in joints you will never get clean. sing sickness. say a name. performer is lucky. informal, unrefined, a beloved community effort where there is always room for error. performer may do as they are moved to do, but it would be nice to see blood fill baseline, limbs clap snares on the bridge, bodies in complete collapse at the foot of Segarra and Segarra’s altar, which we must imagine on stage with performer— themselves at once a worshiper and an idol and an offering, deserving everything we own.]

Hungry Ghost
(for Hurray for the Riff Raff)

My mouth wraps itself around the words, hold firm their girth, flattens the tongue to make cave of their weight. I tremble at Segarra’s sentiments, the reef of bodies about me, the speakers I forget are not my own quivering folds. So this is what it means to divine. I am untrained, over prepared, barely dressed but ready for the world, meeting my neighbors with hip thrusts and high fives, a reciprocated shimmy if we feel lucky. We have not been peer reviewed, sat before a board or tested by the USDA, FDA or FCC— organic objects, draped in expectation, excitement at an abandon we will all fall away from at the end of the night. But this is our right. To be no longer trapped by destiny, in the dark. glitter’s glimmer is its many faces, ready to receive, reflect in any direction, at any instant. I do not know where this is going. Am I candle or candelabra? Holding light or giving body? Am I really ready for the world? the club will close. the robocops will call again. I will be, adrift, left to haunt this collected breath.

boil

smothered, covered and capped,
gravity is gravy—
emulsified, contents like pride,
and here we are,
the sloshing inside.

don’t stir. I am
stationary thing— this pot,
a door, the floor.
heaving medium, I am
composite, trace amounts
tracing your highways inside.

scrub my sprouts form your eyes.
wash me from your root.

you yes you.
yes and,
okay…
stone soup calling

flecks of a past. float
to the top, subtle waltz
of salt. what broth

could become?

hot skin. soft bones.
potato box. oven.
emerging form the cupboard—
a crack open from the back.
the struggle forms the husk.

parking lot, Home Depot

along a ledge, run the wrong
way. into paper, unrolled &
fresh— plucked bud, pressed
                         yearning curve.

to fill their seats as best they can:
the men, whose bodies pushed

leather, rich sun,
muscle and skin, stretch
(less of a question) mark

out here, allowed to be
&
never expected to speak.
                                      thank god.

who stays all hips and hands

when speaking to a father
whose eyes edge back?

but then, again, the men:
                         deeply filled,
formaldehyde feeling.

who wants to smell the wood?
who wants to follow them inside?

Robin Reid Drake is a Chicago based writer, artist and educator from the American South. Drake works as a teaching artist in Chicago Public Schools, where they engage young people around intersectional subjects of queer and trans history, power and poetry. They hold an MFA in writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in writing from the University of North Carolina at Asheville. Drake's written work can be read in Palimpsest, WUSSY, Understory Quarterly, and Foglifter Press' Home Is Where You Queer the Heart. Find (just a tiny bit) more at www.robinreiddrake.com.