By Yomalis Rosario
After Wangechi Mutu’s “Le Noble Savage”
when you are tired of not being
held tell
every snake & flower the corpse
of the lioness the buffalo renewed
when you say so, your legs
will shake out reach
for anything that stays
when you say so, your crown
will cave into the sun make
more place
say so then perish
into everything
say: here i go and here i empty
for you and you declare:
giving is my forever
and bring every meal
to the people on your porch
let their nests sink
into your middle
belong where more life crawls
up this bark let
every mouth and ear stay
in this more place right here
of each
and other
and you
Yomalis Rosario (she/her) is a Black Dominican poet & teacher who was born and raised in Washington Heights, NYC. She was a recipient of the Brooklyn Poets Fall 2023 Fellowship and was awarded a Parent-Writer Fellowship from Martha’s Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing. Most recently, she received a scholarship for The Seventh Wave’s Digital Residency. She writes about creativity, spirituality, & liberation in her newsletter Letters From the Root and also writes a bimonthly column for The Poetry Lab. She currently lives in Jersey City, NJ with her husband and two children.
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