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Dani Janae

Heartbreaking, the Sun

​I watch an ant make ginger

work of the strange, orange
earth it has discovered.

Spring, how heartbreaking.
How emerald, and here, and
alive alive alive is everything.

The sweat collecting across
my chest, gentle larva, trying
to be born into purpose.

Violet

​
I want to stay between these kissing
clouds, to drape you in a garland made
from the deepest crown of sunset.
After carrying you through miles
of dream, I woke to tell you this:
Your honeysuckle eyes drown me
in heat. I let the bee sting; I sing
to myself indulgence, indulgence

Please forgive my stone-heart
she only wanted to be a seed.


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Dani Janae is a poet living and writing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She earned a BA in Creative Writing from Allegheny College and returned home to Pittsburgh after graduating. Her work deals with the physical and emotional legacy of trauma, and the intersecting history of her identity as a black, lesbian woman. Her poems often feature themes of the grotesque, dreamscapes, and the idea of homecoming. Her poetry and essays have been published in Argot Magazine, Palette Poetry, and Public Source.

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