Of Shade

I did not see her bedroom mirror
shatter but I heard it—muffled scream &

wail behind shut doors. Heard it
all the way from beneath the evergreen trees—

my father wanted a divorce.

I’ve since spent much of my life
in fear of my mother’s anger,

that slick shard & surprise of it.
Now at thirty-three, the same age

she birthed me, I realize my pure envy—
I have never truly screamed,

never haloed my mouth & belted,
never quaked a room with thunder.

My lover, who has made me
believe in angels,

books a smash room for me
and I do not scream once,

do not raise my voice as I chuck
china plates into the air,

watch them hang for a moment
like blue-rimmed moons before

shattering them into stars with a metal bat.

Instead, quiet rage rots my insides—
wheezing organs & constant colds at thirty-three.

I get stuck by acupuncture needles
& swallow Zen tea pills, CBD.

I was not in the old backyard
when our evergreens were ripped from the earth,

cannot imagine the shape nor sound
of their screams & falls—

All I can imagine is their pain,
all I can imagine are their echoes.

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Michal ‘MJ’ Jones (they/he) (@blackqueerdo) is an award-winning poet, parent, and editor living in Oakland, CA. Their poetry has appeared in the American Academy of Poets, Obsidian, Split This Rock, Muzzle Magazine, TriQuarterly Review, ANMLY, & elsewhere. Their debut collection of poetry, Hood Vacations, won the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry. They are also the author of a chapbook, Soft Armor (2023), from Black Lawrence Press.