The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: Yearn by Rage Hezekiah

This selection, chosen by guest editor Tierney Bailey, is from Yearn by Rage Hezekiah, released by Diode Editions in 2022.

Sixteen

after Danez Smith

I ride my bike to a boy
what we make
he will kiss
and cry and I
I owe him something
I will let him
my mouth but
I will suck his dick
and not think
it isn’t the first time
this boy can cry
when I get there
I don’t want
I take it anyway
for being a girl

a boy

when I get there
will not be beautiful
my freshly shaved head
will feel
like I belong to him
into the wet wool of
refuse to swallow
while he is crying
this is strange
I’ve done this
I ride my bike to a boy
I’m not sweating
what he gives me
I am guilty
who doesn’t want

Rage Hezekiah is a Cave Canem, Ragdale, and MacDowell Fellow who earned her MFA from Emerson College. She is a recipient of the Saint Botolph Emerging Artist Award and she serves as Interviews Editor at The Common. She is the author of Unslakable (Paper Nautilus Press, 2019) and Stray Harbor (Finishing Line Press, 2019). Rage’s poems have appeared in the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, The Cincinnati Review, The Colorado Review, and many other journals and anthologies.

Tierney Bailey is a Libra, a lover of science fiction and poetry, and is a dice-collecting gremlin. Currently, Tierney is Associate Poetry Editor with Sundress Publications, a copyeditor at Strange Horizons, Associate Editor with PodCastle, and a freelance graphic designer. She has earned a BA from the University of Indianapolis and a Masters Degree in Writing, Literature, and Publishing from Emerson College.