morning glory
::for cornelia street

a holler swells the chest
cement porch stop byways
john the conqueror cloth
ellegua dust & late tithes
swung on metal chair legs
pinky nail & due deals
hard luck in salted pockets
colt 45 lips fragrant
pastoring dense kisses on
fire baptized bodies
all over the floor
jerusalem
the broken city
newborn house of god
saints in christ*
our tomtom soles
damned hymnals.



Shakeema Smalls is business manager and one of the founders of joINT Literary, which is relaunching, this fall. She has had poems in Tidal Basin Review, Blackberry: A Magazine, work in The Feminist Wire, and a few other places.