The tart has molded. 

Most of it we ate. 

With red cheeks by a lake

she lay out like someone 

I would have been

too terrified to call.

Imperious nose flaunting at Romans. 

But mold has arrived. 

Staunch dromedarian,

I keep my feelings in my hump,

doling out just what I need when I need it.

The desert is long.

Dessert is even longer. 

A high-waisted swimsuit

snaps to be fashionable. 

I cannot even count

the Gallic bodies scattered under her peaking brows.

By the lake circle pumas

sniffing each other and forgetting.

Not the smell though. 

Like the internal melodrama of a snowglobe

they paw silently the old tracks

delicate in putrefaction 

as the fuzz rings.

Published December 19th, 2021

Matt Broaddus is the author of two chapbooks, Space Station (Letter [r] Press, 2018) and Two Bolts (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2021). His poetry has appeared in Fence, Foundry, Black Warrior Review, and The Rumpus. He has received fellowships from Cave Canem and Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation as well as a residency from Millay Arts and a scholarship from Community of Writers. He serves as Associate Poetry Editor at Okay Donkey Press and lives in Colorado, where he works at a public library.

Curtis Talwst Santiago (b. 1979, Edmonton, Alberta) studied as an apprentice of Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun. Santiago has exhibited internationally at venues such as The FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY; The New Museum, New York, NY; The Eli and Edythe Broad Museum at Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI; the Institute of Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA; the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan, Canada; The Pérez Art Museum Miami, Miami, FL; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada; and the SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA; among others. The artist was included in the inaugural 2019 Toronto Biennial of Art in Toronto, Canada, the SITE Santa Fe SITELines.2018 Biennial, Casa Tomada, in Santa Fe, NM, and was featured in the 2018 Biennale de Dakar in Dakar, Senegal. The artist's solo exhibition, Can't I Alter, opened in February 2020 at The Drawing Center, New York, NY. Santiago's work is in the permanent collection of the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY. Santiago lives and works between New York, NY, Lisbon, Portugal, and Toronto, CA. You can find more of the artists work online and at the Rachel Uffner Gallery.