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from earth to obsidian (28/30)

prompt: write a poem about bridges. A bridge is a powerful metaphor, and when you start looking for bridges in poems, you find them everywhere. Your poem could be about a real bridge or an imaginary or ideal bridge. It could be one you cross every day, or one that simply seems to stand for something larger – for the idea of connection or distance, for the idea of movement and travel and new horizons.

queens aya and e— tell why

we walked this sky
because we were not wanted
because we were always targets
of extermination

we left in twos
like all sacred beasts
spinning a path
towards another time

where we cannot be hunted
skinned, broken
lynched, choked of fair breath
expected to look away
from our genocide

where our love is no one’s
path to hell
(that look in the eye
confuses even righteous desire,
or the spark of forever)

we bet on the
miracle of our beautiful
black and queer
and liberated
bodies

we called our ship
Harriet’s Escape
her of rocket science and
witchcraft, dream fuel
and tomorrow
as our only direction

we came here for a future
in which our flesh is precious
in which our children are divine
in which our lives matter

we spun the bridge from
death to life
from supremacy to love
from earth
to obsidian