Mahogany skin
lends itself, naturally,
to scaffolding and furniture
alike, crafting exquisite
sculptures pale hands
envy and caress,
asking cinnamon’s
warm russets to
wipe snotty noses
and dust behind
the golden fabric-ed
recliner, left fetishized
and unused in the corner.

Scabbards,
every colored womb,
that bridge yesterday’s hatred
with tomorrow’s subjugation,
deny a solitary fact—

The groaning from
this bridge called my back
is not moaning, and one day
the furniture will bite back.

Tamara Fricke is the 2010 co-winner of the Gertrude Claytor Award of the Academy of American Poets and is previously published by The Lyon Review, Meat for Tea, Attack Bear Press Poetry Vending Machine, Whisper and the Roar, We Will Not Be Silenced, and has been included in a number of compilations.  Her poetry chapbook Our Requiem was released in 2014.  She lives in Springfield, MA, with an ungrateful cat, where she writes grants professionally.