Jaamil Olawale Kosoko

Ninth Sign of Zodiac Black belt of heaven unbuckled. Told Venus to push me out— galloping and cursed, a centaur, firing his weapon of war. November opened my universe. Vulva like a volcano, her afterbirth exposed red ropes of lava. Was I dying or being born? Being torn from refulgent flesh— a body inside a body melting its way out. Loosened heaven, or are you just another unfastened place? Too open, too vast even for your angels. You’ve let them escape, unkempt gates.

Jaamil Olawale Kosoko shares a poem from their new book blending poetry and memoir, conversation and performance theory Black Joy Is the Protest! Listen to me. I am telling you a true thing. This is the only kingdom. The kingdom of touching; the touches of the disappearing, things. —Aracelis Girmay, “Elegy” BLACK JOY is a protest that must be protected. It requires constant spiritual conjuring and attention, attention of embodied survival.

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