write a poem inspired by, or in the form of, a recipe! It can be a recipe for something real, like your grandmother’s lemon chiffon cake, or for something imaginary, like a love potion or a spell.

1 shackle, pile up like flower petal:
round her toe and her ankle
bare feet wounded by the earth
which doesn’t know how to hush with escape
which can’t imagine containment

idea(s) pulled from the eye:
of a beauty inverted from your own
of darkness wrapped up with danger
of hair that spread like virus
of sugar coated supremacy

1 barbed wire, unraveled from a heart:
opening the blood path to sky
soft confused touch on bruised flesh
that tried her whole life to be small
but she massive instead, even her heart

take these things under the next full moon
lay them flat on the naked soil
use one match per freedom – light it up
dance in the smoke until it thick all on you
and then dance even the smoke away