The Body Precipitates Fault

a shore		 without memory 
is a shore


me without skin		        is a visual aid		
for what a human 	is not

my veins alphabetize when they meet open air
marrow unfurls into pure data
my foreign	rutilant organs are pulled and reversed as tarot

	
there is a message in me 		that honeys at the ear
it whispers from behind my abdomen		
it is buried in the lake of my belly



who could resist							


who could fault the righteous 
for one 		                 small vivisection



look at my allure



my hideous silhouette 
		my wolfish lope			           begs		

for the poetics of suture and cut

i must be pieced apart			laid open 	    as a river

because there are worlds in me				    black and displeased
		their stars play in my snarl
and 	for that 	
they cannot remain

---

Quenton Baker is a poet, educator, and Cave Canem fellow. Their current focus is black interiority and the afterlife of slavery. Their work has appeared in The Offing, Jubilat, Prairie Schooner, The Rumpus and elsewhere. They were a Robert Rauschenberg Artist in Residence and received a 2021 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship. They are the author of ballast (Haymarket Books, 2023) and the beast comes to you as smoke (forthcoming in 2027, Haymarket Books).