» Poetry

binding we

…originally published in 40.2 of The Florida Review.

 

you have declared war on our bodies, and our bodies

have fallen on each other in piles

along the gravel and the wood

and the tile of a dance floor

and these holy spaces have become our graves

and the sidewalks our pyres because we are burning up

from our no and our why and our no more

 

we, our breasts, our bodies,

in all their shapes and sizes are heaving

in piles on one another, breathing

the force of love enough to hold the parts of us we do not

recognize, enough to stretch the parts we hold dear

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Nicole Oquendo

Nicole Oquendo is a nonbinary, latinx writer and artist. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals, as well as the chapbooks some prophets, self is wolf, wringing gendered we, and Space Baby, and the hybrid memoir Telomeres. She is currently Assistant Editor for Sundress Publications and Nonfiction Editor for The Florida Review and the Best of the Net annual anthology. Her full-length visual poetry collection, we, animals, is forthcoming from ELJ Publications.