ecology of queers
by Evelyn Berry
home: landscape set ablaze.
field sown with ash, bone.
feathers singed by sun.
sons eclipsed by flame.
harbor of ghost ships
flickers, burns bright,
memorial to mourn
the lost lisp, the forgotten
name, the forlorn body.
this, eulogy
you cannot hear
until you press
your ear against
a closed door,
a horror of hot tongues
humming a sermon-hymn,
music louder than hunger.
in oakland, the fire
in a warehouse,
temporary shelter
become home tangled
in wires, like kudzu slithering
into a verdant field.
in new orleans,
the upstairs lounge
blazed in a douse
of lighter fluid,
& those who escaped
fell through the barred windows
still burning.
in dallas, two men
immolated in their home.
the police reported,
not a hate crime,
not a pyre to which to pray,
not a priority.
i was born into a house
still disastered with smoke,
the brief gospel of blood
& blackened flame
familiar, inherited.
Evelyn Berry (she/they) is a trans, southern writer, editor, and museum educator living in South Carolina. They are the author of Heathens and Liars of Lickskillet County, and the poetry chapbooks Glitter Husk & Buggery. Evelyn is the recipient of the BOOM Chapbook Prize, Emrys Poetry Prize, Patricia and Emmett Robinson Poetry Prize, KAKALAK Poetry Award, and Broad River Prize for Prose, among other honors. Her work has appeared recently in Anti-Heroin Chic, Petrichor, beestung, Beloit Poetry Journal, Taco Bell Quarterly, and elsewhere. They are also a noted margarita and queso enthusiast.
