Portrait of a girl with bridle
& isn’t it pretty to imagine being the kind of person
you could love in a different life isn’t that the kind of awe
that brings someone to their knees in the middle
of a parking lot at night the kind that shakes the stars
with their pity because there are the lies we tell ourselves
& the lies we slather on a wound when there is nothing left
to do with the infection I was once a voodoo doll plaything
making hurt into laughter like any good messiah
I made a theater of it because any good tradesman knows
a broken horse will keep its currency as long as it still prances
as long as it is groomed & neighing & will keep galloping
until it is dead & isn’t it pretty these horseshoes nailed into
my clavicles & how when I bite the bit my teeth shine
like the first day God watched blood fall from Abel’s chalice
of a skull like spiced wine & it was good like I am good
so good the flies don’t bother me anymore so good
when my father watched me stretched out on the rack
of my own making & asked Where has all your joy gone?
I smiled showed all my shining hair my kept hooves
& did not tell him when he said he loved me
I couldn’t believe a word out of any mouth that looked like mine
Bianca Braswell is a Cuban-American poet currently enrolled in the University of North Carolina at Charlotte where she is studying English and Film studies. She has previously been published in Stark poetry journal and has work forthcoming in Mineral Lit Magazine. She is currently working on her first poetry collection.