Her coarse hands kneaded
my thighs into fertile earth.

She anointed me with dirty
war-paint streaks
across my face.

Her long dreadlocks swung like vines
while her feet circled around me —
She smelled like dirty butter
and homemade cornbread.

I felt a longing
to lick the salt from the edges of her elbows.

My torso undulated like tall tips of seeded grain
moved by steady wind.

Pain pushed its way out from my deepest wounds.
I screamed in ecstasy as it slithered out of me
and crawled onto my naked chest.

I held it softly,
hungry,
exhausted.

[Jennifer Lothrigel is a poet and artist residing in the San Francisco Bay area. She has just published her first chapbook through Liquid Light Press, titled ‘Pneuma’. Her work has also been published in The Bitter Oleander, Poetry Quarterly, The Haight Ashbury Journal, NILVX, and elsewhere.]