Blackbirdan online journal of literature and the artsFall 2022  Vol. 21  No. 2
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back DEVON WALKER-FIGUEROA

The Blood’s Unwritable Psalm

My body is just the story it tells
in order to be true. The moon goes on

enlarging the ballad of its fall, pretending
it’s innocent as a cloak

draped over a virgin’s shoulders. I was once
virginal before I was tangible, and my voice

swaddled me in what I’ve learned to call
refrain. If I’d been born in the shape of

a boy, I might have been
named after trees so old

they are only the sounds we make for them.  

Devon Walker-Figueroa, “The Blood’s Unwritable Psalm” from Philomath: Poems. Copyright © 2021 by Devon Walker-Figueroa. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Milkweed Editions.


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