Claretta Holsey
A response to Brandon Drew Holmes
after the Nursery Rhyme “[This is the Key of the Kingdom]”
Departures
i.
this is our first-class ticket
to the kingdom: body
in the wrong place
at the wrong time
in a hoodie
in a headdress
in a dreadlock
with a sharp tongue
with a Peace Tea
with a fat lip
with a magic
with a breath
a breath, a breath,
a body breathing
at last!
ii.
in/to this blackness
breathe a black
magic with
fat lips
fat piece with
sharp tongue dreaded
headlock dreaded hood
he dress dreaded: timed
release:
play king
in wrong body our breath
lasts
last
a first-class ticket
kingdom mist
We feeling
it is not
your fault
your dark is
precipitate
solved
yet insoluble
heeled
by strokes of
the tongue
flex
of sun
ray fumbles its
yellow through
your hair
your knot of
earth
miring
the current
what's past has
formed you to
the letter
angling sharp
like razor your
particular
i’s
it is
not my fault
my dark is
particulate
budding to be
sunned
hands
razed
for my portion
erasure
she dust
like stranded
fare
Responses to Brandon Drew Holmes's Work
Claretta Holsey
Claretta Holsey is a Rona Jaffe Foundation Graduate Fellow at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is at work on her poetry thesis. A three-time awardee of the Academy of American Poets prize, she recently graduated summa cum laude with a BA from Stetson University. Her poetry and creative non-fiction have been published in Poetry Breakfast, Fishfood Magazine, on Poets.org, and in Stetson University’s literary journal Touchstone.
