XVIII. The Moon (Reversed)

whose world am I
by Chanté-Marie Young

your fingers moulded to a face fresh with god
hailed the sight of skin deleted from my lips
unravelling from a smile. we lived where we trod
and you endured for a moment — admiring my hips
tangled bushes and thorns in my hair and said I
reek from a tongue sweating with ample worships.
ours is a body overflowing with anaemic fruit
over-ripened and overwrought papayas, plums and
star apples gardened by the fingers of a brute.
silence strummed my ribs with your aching thumb
numbing me to sticky lies and a deep delicious song

while I slept, you mined for gold in my gums

Chanté-Marie Young (she/her) is a British writer of Indigenous Jamaican Taíno heritage. She is a graduate of the University of Warwick, specialising in English Literature and Creative Writing. She is passionate about magical realism, fine art, poetry and fiction. Chanté-Marie’s poetry can be found at Re-Side Zine. She is currently writing her debut novel.