I love summer like I invented it

fat red flowers, tomato toast

& being bitten. mostly I want to lie down

for some time in the dirt that made me &

dream a little. in my best dream, there

is your body sunsetting mine

drifting lower to warm me.

I can’t hold you like this but

begin to feel you everywhere.

 i want to be your dark honey girl, barefoot

in a skirt telling the future before i make it.

let me carve my name into the forbidden oak

of your back, hold your head in my hands

black as mercury, the Guadalupe at night.

let me kiss your lips firm & unsmiling

like it doesn’t bring me back to life just to do it

I love you like I invented you

like a spartan ready to die about it,

to tear my clothes, to fall on every sword from here

to the sea, minoan blue.

mostly i want to eat sorrel soft serve with you

somewhere as wet as it is green

where heat whistles through

the gap in its teeth

Imani Nikelle is a (forever) poet, (sometimes) florist, and (budding) filmmaker based in Brooklyn, New York. Her poems start with questions and end with memories. More of Imani’s work can be found in Sweet Tree Review, Changing Womxn Collective, and Wax Nine Journal.