By Cameron Atlas Chiovitti
after Jari Bradley I was the only boi I knew dreaming in soft bruise- dried pavement praying to the sky for the rain’s persistent fists to pry open my sealing wounds. I awoke every night with hurricanes in my veins. I could never be a boy the way boys are supposed to, so I grew my hair to my waist when the kids called me heshe; stitched rose petals to my scalp with gravel & glue; hollowed the holes in my bones to make way for the sea. Storms smell sweetest in the wake of destruction. I capture the twilight’s mist in my cologne; drown the girl in my hips in the midst of interruption; bury her beneath the boy swelling in my breastbone. Maybe I am neither this girl’s breath or that boy’s regret, but a lullaby boi bursting from a bruising sunset.
Cameron Atlas Chiovitti, a creative writing student at OCAD University, uses poetry to explore what it means to be human through the context of their experiences. Each new piece is both a deeper exploration into their craft and their healing. Some of Cameron’s most notable publications to date include FreezeRay Poetry, The Closed Eye Open, LSTW, and their self-published chapbook, Paint My Skin With Sweetness. All of their work currently available online can be found here: https://linktr.ee/maskofpoetry.
Serge Lecomte was born in Belgium. He came to the States where he spent his teens Brooklyn. After graduation he joined the Medical Corps in the Air Force. He earned a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in Russian Literature. He worked as a Green Beret language instructor at Fort Bragg, NC from 1975-78. In 1988 he received a B.A. from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in Spanish Literature. He worked as a language teacher at the University of Alaska (1978-1997). He worked as a house builder, pipe-fitter, orderly in a hospital, gardener, landscaper, driller for an assaying company, bartender.