Capsicum by Ashley Wagner
There’s a
powder blue
cornflower blue
canister in the crevice
of my bag filled
with chili extracts
and attached
to a silver ring tucked
beside The Carrying.
Maybe this
is what Limón meant
when she said, Then
they came: the men.
The men, like carnivorous
fish under calm
creek water.
The men, like large-
clawed birds.
The men, like riots.
The men, like quiet.
My fear survives
in the ellipses. I
struggle to speak
it to life. It lives
in the dark parts of me
with no names.
No—that isn’t
right. They have names,
no matter how
I turn away.
The amygdala,
for instance. That
reaching
structure, that
claw. Like want
and revulsion
all in one motion.
Everything is happening
all at once. There
are men
in the courts
like the ones
who whistle at me—
no, at my legs,
no, at my breasts,
no, at my feet.
maybe—
on street corners and
on campus and
in the grocery store
so near
to my home where
I buy thin-skinned
plums, Granny
Smiths, and peppers
that I crack my teeth into
that allow me,
for once,
to be the one
who spits fire.
