travis tate
WHERE I WAIT FOR YOU

The river before anything else, the glazed sun emerging
gently from evening. You, brightly looking towards what
I hope is me or, some future tense self where I’m dangling
slightly less from crisp edges. I’m all in-tuned, harmonic.
Your beaded breath on my neck in the morning, not like
beautiful but your stale mouth close to my ear. Quick
horizon made from our bodies lying close & the damned
buildings spiked up from the concrete. I see us in our
dizzy haze, walking close, shaking our bodies in each
others’ directions, seeing my parents, eating food from
a plate we share on the veranda, our bungalow. I want a
river to run through me, make a beard of your bramble,
something to put my hairs through in the wet evening.
Are you constant in your shaking? The riverbed is small,
something growing away from each of us, riverlets or,
more accurately, estuaries, gliding simply towards the sea.

travis tate is a queer, black playwright, poet and performer from Austin, Texas. Their poetry has appeared in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Underblong, Mr. Ma’am, apt, and Cosmonaut Avenue among other journals. Maiden, their debut poetry collection, is out on V.A. Press. They earned an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers. You can find more about them at travisltate.com.

Read more from Cleaver Magazine’s Issue #32.