Poetry by Josephine Blair Cipriano

                 ​renee. CC




Aftermath

i don’t know the name 
of this plant   but sun turns it 
purple   its hands are purple   i don’t know 
my name    leaves    
drink through glass    blood resists 
when drawn    dark cells 
open   in the sun       give me two 
names   one for pleasure    another
for science   don’t tell me 
either    let me live 
with this violence    however 
i want       the truth 
is     no one saw him 
lay a finger   
on me       my shadow 
irrevocably 
purple        violence 
behind a locked door is still
a truth    made of hands





i tell myself 


a desert / an ocean 
the blood / on the floor / is not mine 
the cuts / nothing
inside / the stench of this man / belongs to me
i won’t crash / i won’t 
in a pile of leaves / in the story / i am sand 
i mean blood / i mean i am choking
on his fist / there’s shit
in my bed / and that changes
nothing / the note from my mother / eye 
love ewe / thrown
from its summit / my dresser 
worn panties / gutted 
flesh / on the ground 
slung together / wet
rope / my body unmaking
itself / when it ends / there are leaves
i mean snow / i mean my mother’s
chest / nothing
rots / no girl no 
landscape / endless
breath / the sun / somehow finds me
even in death 




Josephine Blair Cipriano (she/her) is a 2019 Brooklyn Poets Fellow whose work has been published or is forthcoming in The Rumpus, Copper Nickel, Epiphany Magazine, Yes Poetry, and elsewhere. She is the winner of the 2021 Brooklyn Poets Poem of the Year Award, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Frontier Magazine Emerging Poet's Prize. She lives in Tucson, AZ.
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