Rebirth of Pinocchio or For Brown Boys

Real brown boys don’t always hang
like nooses in the summer breeze
but can run with raw blistered toes,
heels kicking back freshly cut grass
wind carrying backs like thrones.

I like to think when I touch your face
it softens, which is how you birth yourself
over and over, slinging god on your back
as you hurdle around the wood axes of the world.
I marvel at the way you navigate the whales of the world

& hope you realize the lie they told you about brown flesh.
It’s never been made for strings.

—

Newark, NJ native Ysabel Y. Gonzalez received her BA from Rutgers University and an MFA in Poetry from Drew University. She’s received invitations to attend VONA, Tin House, Ashbery Home School and BOAAT Press workshops. She’s a CantoMundo Fellow, and is published in Tinderbox Journal; Anomaly; Vinyl; Waxwing Literary Journal, and others.  Her first full length collection of poems, Wild Invocations, is available from Get Fresh Books. You can read more at www.ysabelgonzalez.com.