[chords howl
at midnight’s melanin]
i can sniff the weeds
between your teeth
& catch your compass twerk hard
trying to thieve the north star
my soles lick
these fragments piled deep
to embers nesting above
from dusk’s rising
fragments stacked to puncture
a vast escape
i have abandoned to
Dana Tenille Weekes navigates the worlds of law and policy in the swirl of Washington, DC. Some of her poems have been published in A Gathering of the Tribes, Torch Literary Arts, and South 85 Journal, and will be in forthcoming issues of Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora and The Elevation Review. She is a 2022 Pushcart Prize nominee and finalist in Rhino Poetry’s 2022 Founders’ Prize. Dana is the daughter of Bajan immigrants and is the first in her family to be born in the United States.
