Someday Cai Will Love Me

after Ocean Vuong

rough & tumble boi,

let me whisper into that nostalgic burst of body
let me interrupt::deepen your mending

i know blood’s citrus
reminds you of those first stings

gravel & your tender head
& your prom dress like dust

like dead skin & mineral
coral fabric & glistening transatlantic ash

let me sermon::atone into all that disjoints you
into all in you that is hollow with(out) reason

you think yourself a smokestack
but darling you are air changing

i say I love you
through each lyric omission

i say I love you
through each tense schism

each hesitation, each ink spilled fingerprint
each creased omen of biological determinism

you are afraid
though you will not admit this to the public

you can not
bring your self

to touch me::be touched
to write me::be written

my love please
let me kiss you clean

return to my primordial puck
early in the midnight hour

or high sweet morning mist
collapse into my impenetrable bosom

sad & tender boi
trust my infrastructure

surrender to the unmistakable script
of my lifelines

& i will carry you
slow & steady
all the way
home

Cai Rodrigues-Sherley (he/they) is a Black queer poet, teaching artist, and lover of 1970s youth poetry. He cares about trans childhoods, queer bodies, mortality, heritage, and love. He is a Sagittarius Sun, Gemini Rising, and Cancer Moon, which means nothing and absolutely everything. He was the 2019 recipient of the Smith College Emily Babcock Poetry Prize, and their work can be found in Cosmonauts Avenue and on the Brooklyn Poets website, where they were a featured Poet of the Week. They currently live in Queens with their partner and are an MFA candidate at New York University in their Creative Writing Program. You can find him on Twitter @caifieri and on Instagram as @thatcaifrom96.