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

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

6.

What when a heaven is tattered
And when the silken drapes
You painted your future on
Gape at you with
Wide-eyed embers
When the goal you were running to
Has been removed
But you have to run on
When dreams lie shredded
But you dream on
After you forced shut down
Your lids
What when you built nothing more
Than a towering jenga
And for every 3 blocks you’ve been adding
One is removed
And what when it all collapses
And you build on and build again
And mend the shreds
And sew the holes
But that heaven will never be
Even with a hole in your head
Or a stake through your heart

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.