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Poem-a-Day - "Baseline" by Caleb Femi

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December 14, 2023 

Baseline
Caleb Femi
after “The First Time You Hold a Gun”

My mother’s heartbeat
the first time I heard a baseline.
Her womb, the first room I danced in.
How did it go again?
Kick cloud-soft twirl
stretch
dark gulf
neon on my clay brain.
Kick . . . Then
the melody drops
& her vocals come in.

[VERSE 1]

There will be strife,
burnt days, a God
besides me
sex & crueler colours
than the abyss
but there will be this.

Copyright © 2023 by Caleb Femi. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 14, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets. 

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“I wrote this poem at a house party.”
—Caleb Femi
Caleb Femi
Caleb Femi is the author of Poor (Penguin, 2020), winner of the 2021 Forward Prize for Best First Collection. He lives in London.
Poor
Poor
(Penguin, 2020)
“Blind Boone’s Apparitions” by Tyehimba Jess
read more
“We, Made of Bone” by Mahtem Shiferraw
read more

Thanks to Claudia Rankine, author of Just Us: An American Conversation (Graywolf Press, 2021), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Read or listen to a Q&A about Rankine’s curatorial approach and find out more about our guest editors for the year.
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