Sadness is Not the Only Muse
dezireé a. brown | Poetry
after Derrick Austin
My wife’s loud cackle echoes
from the bedroom. It’s the kind
of laugh that adds seven whole minutes
to your life. She must be trading jabs
with her sister, or making a lewd
joke about concrete and the curves
of her body. She howls like she’s finally
found the sun she’s been searching for, alive
and whispering hymns underneath
her pillow. Like her voice is the only sound
that can prevent this city from shrouding
into darkness. Like, at any second, she’ll become
the sun she’s been searching for — rising up
from our rose-colored sheets to claim
a corner of the horizon for herself:
taking a warm bath with blinking stars,
baking cakes and garlic naan to share
with feverish gods. The two small dogs
at my feet scurry through our apartment,
chew toys in tow, hoping to find
the source of the sound.
dezireé a. brown (they/he) is a Black queer nonbinary Pushcart Prize-nominated poet, scholar, and sjw, born and raised in Flint, MI. They are the winner of the Betty Stuart Smith Award from the University of Illinois in Chicago, where they are currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of English. They were also a Quarternalist in the 5th Annual Screencraft Screenwriting Fellowship, often claiming to have been born with a poem written across their chest. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Cream City Review, Four Way Review, Cartridge Lit, beestung magazine, and the anthology A Garden of Black Joy: Global Poetry from the Edges of Liberation and Living, among others.