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The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: When the Trumpet Is Blown by Quraishiyah Durbarry

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This selection, chosen by guest editor Merrick Sloane, is from When the Trumpet Is Blown by Quraishiyah Durbarry (Resource Publications, 2023).

1.

In the depth
Of the blue ocean
My love now lies
In the bosom
Of comforting waves
That slowly sway
Her cradle
And lull her sleep eternal

In the lighted depths
Where I hope
The water is warm
She lies in a bag
Cause I could not find her
A well-adorned coffin
I loved her so
But still wanted to get rid
Of the body
That showed no life
And curdled her eyes

In her watery coffin
My baby is safe

I tell myself
From gnawing teeth
And clawing gnarls
How would I have lived knowing
In the soil muddy
My heart was buried
And now lived
In the depth of
A dark pitted earth

But my heart is serene
I built no pyramids
But threw her in the
Foaming tongues
Of the stormy sea
But to heaven same
She must have flown

The only thing I dread
Is the saying
That the sea ultimately throws
Out everything
And sometimes I regret
Missing my baby so much
For fear of wanting her back

Quraishiyah Durbarry is a doctoral student in comparative literature at the University of Clermont Auvergne and has so far ventured into several genres, including poetry, novel, and drama. A bilingual author, Quraishiyah writes in both English and French. She was Co-Laureate and Laureate of the Writing Prize for the Passe Portes Festival of the European Union in 2015 and 2016 respectively.

Merrick Sloane (they/them) is a neuro-Queer 90’s kid and nonbinary poet, editor, and researcher from Oklahoma who’s a sucker for expletives and second languages. They hold an MFA in creative writing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and are Associate Poetry Editor of Doubleback Review. Merrick’s work has appeared in The Central Dissent: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality, Stories for the Road: Trauma and Internal Communication, BLEACH!, citizen trans* {project}, Arcana Poetry and is forthcoming in Puerto del Sol and ANMLY. Merrick’s poetry was recently selected as a winner of the Garden Party Collective’s contest on Neurodivergence / Intersectionality and as a winner for AWP’s 2025 Intro Journal Awards. Their work has received support from the DreamYard Rad(ical) Poetry Consortium and Sundress Publications. Merrick writes so that others may feel radically loved.

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