GLOW | QUEER POETRY FEATURE: JOSHUA JENNIFER ESPINOZA

Below, you will find two poems from Joshua Jennifer Espinoza.

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THESE SOFT THINGS

blissful arms

womanly
           arms
skinning them
selves
         like apples

i am open
to interpretation
       so taste me
lick me

eat

   of my flesh
and appropriate
my suffering

it was so

         long ago that
i was walking
streets made of
conditional
            love

but now
i am too filled
with fear
to walk anywhere

with my blissful
legs, my bruised
arms

these soft things
leave me
     happy

being alone
and untouched
leaves me
           so happy

---

LOVE

I dig so deep my hands disappear
into themselves and become birds
after my own heart.

The outside grass is wet and teeming
with life that stays alive despite
men and police and the weight of 

living. I still believe in feeling every
awful thing in existence. I dance
although my muscles protest movement.

I say it’s okay to not wake up
sometimes. Even when there are
five moons in the sky and the words 

written on signs change every
time you look away. You know
where you are and you can stay there.

You can shut your eyes and shake
your head back and forth until you
come to in some beautiful rainstorm

that will always be waiting for you.

---

Joshua Jennifer Espinoza is a trans woman poet living in California. Her work has been featured in The Offing, The Feminist Wire, PEN America, and elsewhere. Her first book of poems i’m alive / it hurts / i love it was released through boost house in 2014, and her second collection THERE SHOULD BE FLOWERS was published by Civil Coping Mechanisms in 2016.