∞
Approximation of a Woman
after Proxemics: Personal Space/Commanding Stance, 2015 by John Beadle and inspired by Valerie June’s rendition of ‘Bring It on Home to Me’
Faced in
bird as hair
part cathedral and placed on
half mesh
the fists above
the hip, somewhere in the middle
Sam Cooke is singing “Bring It on Home to Me”
to her
boned by paper
back of wood
unspoken for
sliver of an image
rust for heart—spoilt peach colored—
leading to the neck russet
to mouth peeled
and inner ear
the scent of
unwetted sweat, “yeah.
∞
Tiffany Austin currently teaches rhetorical and creative writing at the University of The Bahamas. She has published poetry in African American Review, Callaloo, Obsidian, pluck!, Valley Voices, and Sycorax’s Daughters, a speculative literature anthology. Her photo essay “A South in Sound” was also recently published in TriQuarterly.