Fo’ Sho & Tell

This week’s Fo’ Sho & Tell artist is the incomparable Claire Gallagher.  Artist/writer/designer extraordinaire – the poetry featured here belongs to her.  For more of Claire’s work, check out her Instagram page @CapybaraClaire and Tumblr at kidsincities.tumblr.com.  If you would like to be featured on Fo’ Sho & Tell please email us at [email protected]

Young American Poems

Sitting behind her I realize
She is actually a he
From the halo of hair
Glowing around his stabbing knee
That juts from the hole of her jeans
And it makes sense suddenly
No girl’s thigh could ever be
So flimsy
Someone reads a poem aloud from a dais
But I never learned how to pray
So all the while running through my head
Is bison bison bison bison until I realize it’s seven and buffalo or maybe eight
So buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffal
oh? He has a mustache I see.
And such sun-kissed hair!
But his hips they
Don’t sit like a woman’s
Don’t pound full and heavy with blood and love like
Buffalo hooves vibrating off this linoleum floor
Off this building with its brick arches,
Wooden beams for legs
The voices in here all echo
Pregnant
With cavernous bass and
Quick trip tongues
Who is this girl
With the jagged knees and the
Sunny mustache and the buffalo feet
Stampeding through every
Conceived or conceiving meaning?