devotion boy
when i am born i am born with arms in my chest turning/all of me moving/hands legs eyes laughing cause it tickles/and the women in the church say i'm beautiful/they drop spare change in my back to watch me pray so/i come before your throne today/to be made real i pray/every morning and every night/a screw falls out of me/rolls beneath the pews or/clatters in my guts so/i walk as a song of undoing/laughing cause it tickles when the women put their change in me so/when i pray to be a real boy/i stutter and i twitch…
Joshua C. Pipkins is a pushcart nominated poet based in Memphis, Tennessee.