self-portrait as Akasha, Queen of the Damned, watching her lover shave their own face
how else could I become the blue metal blade so close to the pulse of your blood? maroon makes moonlight of you, makes you a man so close to killing, I quiver. slant against its sharp edge, you finger your fine lines: jawbone, mustache, soft palette of your throat. you make marvel at this ophidian ritual, habitual gendering, and our yearn to cut, to come, to coax red rouge from its vein, my mouth animal and fanged. that we are mortal must only mean we know how to make, of one another, prey. I pray some nights to be the blade; I pray some nights to be its hold— the thing you touch or the thing that touches you; tongue tasting razor’s red drip, or the blood itself spooling along my teeth. carnal, this queer ache, blueing between the midnight fists of my want. Appears in Dead Girl Cameo (Penguin, 2026)
Audio: m. mick powell reads “self-portrait as Akasha, Queen of the Damned, watching her lover shave their own face”
m. mick powell is a queer Black Cape Verdean femme, poet, artist, Aries, and the author of DEAD GIRL CAMEO, winner of the Stonewall Book Award and listed as a Best Book of the Year by the New York Public Library. They have received fellowships and residencies from Yaddo, Lambda Literary, Torch Literary Arts, the McCormack Writing Center, and others. Their chapbook “threesome in the last Toyota Celica & other circus tricks” won the 2023 Host Publications Chapbook Prize. Currently based in Portland, OR, mick enjoys chasing waterfalls and being in love.