At the river, I watches the green be itself even without the sun. I is
the only bright yellow thing out here. I’s nails, anyway. Painted, panting body, again. Anyway,
I is sitting here. Black, wave, citrine, cloud, brown, & outside. Brush strokes. Me. The dabbing day. Breathe. I doesn’t stop. I lets it all be. Outside. See,
I often is afraid. To be a skin wearing this much color.
JASMINE REID is a twice trans poet of flowers. She is the author of the forthcoming chapbook Deus Ex Nigrum, winner of the 2018 Honeysuckle Press Chapbook Contest, selected by Danez Smith. A 2018 Poets House Fellow and MFA candidate at Cornell University, her work has been published or is forthcoming in Muzzle Magazine, Apogee, Poetry Daily, Paper Darts, & Yemassee Journal, among others. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominated poet, Jasmine was born and raised in Baltimore, MD, and is currently based in Ithaca, NY. You can follow Jasmine on Twitter and Instagram.