Michael Rex

Sweet hairy head top pull out of you into your world
And looks at you,
And looks like you.
Children are always a blessing…
And if not to you mama
Then to themselves because life simply is without asking permission
And begins to grow.

You notice how he is more of a single mother than the other boys
And how his waist wire dances in his walk.
You hear the familiar melody in his sound and see the colour in his wrist.
His tears are as soft as him… and are often.

Girls are only word of mouth.
You question why bass voices make him soften and blush and laugh and fold his lips into war against wide smiles and harden.
Jesus?
You plant seeds of procreation and welcoming vaginas into his ear and hope it grows. 
You wait. It rots. 
His body contracts into a pantomime when you speak of what boys’ futures should be. 
You know.

Michael Rex is a 19 year old poet from St. Catherine Jamaica. He is a UWI hopeful, with a goal of reading for a degree in Literatures in English. Though this is his publishing debut, he was recently shortlisted for the Poet Laureate of Jamaica Young Writer’s Prize for Poetry.