— for V, my home base we will not die today, no, we will wake up in Michigan, eat biscuits with eggs while our barefeet kiss under the table we will clink our glasses filled with OJ & iron supplements, toast to one year we will not put on pants or bras, we will pile onto the couch to watch the news heat up the hot water bottle & alternate placing it over our uteri because it is shark week & our cycles don't give a fuck about wedding anniversaries or sunday morning massacres you know what would suck right now? you say to me & without skipping a beat i say: if we were both pregnant & we laugh & rub our dog's belly until he growls with pleasure & bites our hands softly because this is what packs do care for each other even when the bleeding will not stop when it aches to be alive & queer & brown we will not die today we will make it off the couch & out to the river trail where we will walk until our faces drip with moisture & pausing under a tree i will say: i'm so sad in my bones so you grab my hand & say: let's see how far we can go & our feet take us all the way to the zoo where we squat to rest, to drink water & listen to our remarkable breaths we will not die today we will make it home, take cold showers lie under the ceiling fan until we fall asleep our bodies side-by-side on the bed two browning avocado halves in the afternoon light you're the only person i want to be here with both of us will speak out of our heavy dreams & we will wake up, again, put on nice clothes drive across town to eat mussels drenched in butter we will not die today, no we will tear into our steaks & with each bite we will remember all of the light we've lost we will drink our whiskey & promise to stay woke, to hurt ourselves less the night will open her fist full of stars to us as if to say: here, take what you need & hold it & the car ride home will be full with stillness save our thundering, electric hearts

Mariama J. Lockington is a writer, educator, and transracial adoptee who calls many places home. She currently works as a grants coordinator and lives in Lansing, Michigan with her wife and their dapple-haired dachshund, Henry. She is the founder of the womanist project the Black Unicorn Book Club and is published in a number of journals including Prelude Magazine, Washington Square Review: Issue 36, Read America (s) Anthology, and Bozalta Journal. You can find more of her work here.

Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published weekly by Glass Poetry Press. All contents © the author.