by Tauwan Patterson

‏‏‎ ‎

after Ross Gay

among the delights of his delight.

pecans. a memory unplugged via his:

a backyard in new orleans. a pecan tree

dropping its nuts. an invitation

to step on them, crack them open,

pluck from them the meat. an invitation he took

naturally. as did she. though,

in this here memory of mine,

the pecans did not fall from the sky,

nor were they crunched beneath her feet.

they were,

instead,

cracked between the prongs of a sterling silver tool

with a firm, tight, grip.

SNAP —

I see her eating them freely,

a harvest; I see them being baked in a pie

. . . so lovely. How beautiful. . .

delight.

in this return to her bags of pecans. in this

return to the south. wrinkles in time recalled hugging me

like a healing significant —

grannies are the best —

a salve.

‏‏‎ ‎

[poem contains lines and words from “Pecans” in Ross Gay’s “The Book of Delights”]

© Tauwan Patterson

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Hailing from South Central, Los Angeles, Tauwan Patterson is a Black + Queer Poet and recent graduate of the MFA Creative Writing Program at Queens University of Charlotte, North Carolina. His work has appeared in online literary magazines Cool Beans Lit, 3rd Wednesday Magazine, and Muse-Pie Press’ Shot Glass Issue #41, and will also appear in the forthcoming Moonstone Arts Center anthology Which Side Are You On?!, the Winter Issue of Rise Up Review, Porkbelly Press’ Love Me, Love My Belly zine, and the Rising Phoenix Review. With his poetry Tauwan aims to, in the words of the great Poet and Thinker Marcus Jackson, announce his freedom and presence. Making a sound that echoes in the end that says Tauwan Patterson. No more. No less.

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