Community Ode

By Blaine Purcell

The mud between my feet sounds like the dead 

talkin, high as hell and cottonmouthed.

The men in their camo and bright orange don’t want us

to know we come from the wet ground 

that holds flytrap roots, sitting hungry, packed thirty-six 

deep in the swamp where my best friends are gators 

and we wear each other like purses, yanking each other up 

as the dirt softens beneath us. 

The women who frequently complain in restaurants 

don’t know how many teeth lie behind the latch, 

or how long our throats go before you reach stomach, 

but they call us drop zone. Caution tape. 

Enter at your own risk. If you’re shorter than 72 inches, 

the grass will have you looking 5’1”. Stunt with my niggas we 7’2.” 

We a whole cheer team, me and my niggas and my not niggas 

and a couple whiteys too. We don’t want you 

unless you got skin the faggots would call cunt. We jackets 

and cargo pants and gum-sole boots. Shit, they don’t know 

what happens where water meets graveyard,

and they ain’t dipping a toe in to find out. 

We fuck around, we dozen, we Anaconda. 

We don’t want none unless you got teeth, hon, 

a mouth that closes slow, like cold blood.

About the Author

Blaine Purcell (they/them) is a Black, Gender-Fluid writer from Greensboro, North Carolina. They are a recent UNC Chapel Hill Graduate and are currently working on their first manuscript and applying to MFA programs. Blaine has previously been published in Beaver Magazine.