"the intimacies of what will be called our sacred alliance without history" by Simone White

July 28, 2022

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the intimacies of what will be called our sacred alliance without history

Simone White

in community those who do not

the man i was drawing and dreaming was six foot three two hundred twenty pounds

six foot two one hundred eighty-five pounds

six foot three one hundred forty-five pound

six foot five two hundred ten pounds

a little sketch of his white woman

i didn’t know where to put myself

I am nobody’s woman I belong to myself because I am unable to forgive

but what is because

I am I said unable to forgive

they say I am his other woman

but I don’t belong to anybody nor the streets I don’t know any other way

to love

unable and because

I know him and he knows me

when he says

come here girl!

that is what i do

not anybody but the one who is the very one who is the one who

can know I do not forgive the ones who have the same quality for warring

they love the soldier I was raised to be the war in me

like I love him I do not forgive I do not give anybody my money

the struggle is over

hustle

i think i hold freedom inside me which is probably why i dream about

who i want inside me who among my sweet friends

all of whom treat me like the

bitch

they believe me to be

in their hearts

i’m not embarrassed to say i am the other woman

it’s an open secret it’s a

metaphor

on the street with a man i want very badly

i know i am eclipsed by his actual glamor

and fearlessness

a wake anybody conscious could move into

when i say “a man i want” he’s black because

because because because because

the quest reveals

love to be what i have to offer and what i have for

my familiar

he is a criminal he is a liar he is high as a motherfucker

on his way over here right now

soon i’ll need a new pair of spectacles

i need

somebody to pick up the tab for afterschool

to pay off my loans

i’m broke

this is something we can negotiate

the toll

to be claimed

belonging to him as the root business

between us

our instructive adhesion

taking place within unwillingness to forgive surrounding terrors

blocked in terms of sociogeny

i think about having a secretary

i wish for a girl

to shield me from incoming emails

and misogynist blows

simone is in a meeting she cannot come to the phone right now (POW) she sleeps naked

(GBOSA) her skin is very delicate though papery to her own touch she will

accept flowers yes ranunculus and dahlia (SMACK) she is saying hold on

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“This poem erupted and is embedded within an essay titled ‘Warring.’ It is what happened when I could not get to in prose what I meant by cultural desire for the rapper, Future, who rapper-watchers describe as an artist who deals in ‘toxic masculinity.’ In a patriarchal society, I am not sure about what kind of masculinity is not toxic to somebody. More than that, I am interested in how performances of desire and desirability that are condemned as disgusting are also, at the same time, impossible to separate from sacred aspects of blackness; in this case, what is sacred is what is called ‘swagger’—an element of soul.”
—Simone White

Simone White is a Black poet and the author of or, on being the other woman (Duke University Press, 2022), among other titles. The recipient of a 2017 Whiting Award, she is an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

or, on being the other woman
(Duke University Press, 2022)

“Did anyone ever ask any one of Nikita’s daughters” by francine j. harris
read more

“My Man” by Ricardo Aleixo
read more

Thanks to E rica Hunt, author of Jump the Clock (Nightboat Books, 2020), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Read or listen to a Q&A about Hunt’s curatorial approach and find out more about our guest editors for the year.

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