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Tarot Poems by Arumandhira Howard

The Fool

:: variety looks like: lying        ::
:: to the uber driver about my      ::
:: blood. it’s never about the      ::
:: wigs matting under the sink.     ::
:: it’s about letting a white boy   ::
:: squeeze champagne from           ::
:: my arteries. it’s about          ::
:: grandmother spending             ::
:: her last days with a face        ::
:: full of make-up. my belly        ::

:: swells with nothing. i am        ::
:: fiction—a truth as far-out       ::
:: as urban legend.                 ::

The Lovers

:: did you lose your reflection     ::
:: in mine? i’ll leave violet       ::
:: bread crumbs across              ::
:: the loneliest planet for you.    ::
:: i’ve been opened before.         ::
:: the fortune, nowhere             ::
:: to be found. yet                 ::

:: being split is a gift.           ::

:: my marrow, brass from every      ::
:: lie i’ve told. oh, january.      ::

:: how light was soft silver        ::
:: fur around your coldness,        ::
:: a somewhat halo.                 ::

The Hanged Man

:: smoke the incense of my husk.    ::
:: i know how to shake ass          ::
:: on my own rubble every           ::
:: morning & marry forehead to      ::
:: the back of mother’s hand        ::
:: before a voyage. only pray       ::
:: to make it home safe when i’m    ::
:: feeling myself                   ::

:: otherwise moonlight as           ::
:: a family curse, godhelpyou       ::
:: silking every esophagus.         ::

:: word on the street is:           ::
:: floodlight through               ::
:: bullet holes looks like          ::
:: autumn somewhere foreign.        ::

The Devil

:: when i speak, where does         ::
:: it land? in the space between    ::
:: my fingers i hold shelter        ::
:: for the finer things—in          ::
:: my uterus: a hostage             ::
:: appetite to find the one         ::
:: strong enough to bury me.        ::

:: I grind the rank bull to dust    ::
:: for masses to gum,               ::

:: clap my glazed thighs            ::
:: as a mating cry.                 ::

:: to have pussy is to be rouged    ::
:: with centuries & terror.         ::

The Moon

:: name the undiscovered            ::
:: hue on your face like            ::
:: a hitchhiking storm. it          ::
:: goes like this: spiced           ::
:: amber exploding between          ::
:: riptides of grey. the night      ::
:: writhes in its papery scales,    ::
:: choreos blood into               ::

:: cursive. everywhere,             ::
:: i am leaving.                    ::

:: you don’t owe me,                ::
:: anything, love                   ::

:: but here you are,                ::
:: a lost painting of me.           ::

Arumandhira Howard

IG: @stiiickyriiice

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