Mckendy Fils-Aimé

the lougarou discusses origin

where's anyone from really? i know, someone
somewhen died for you to exist, but would you
consider yourself part decay? don’t ask me 

about me. i was born boko or bourgeois
or abducted. i don’t remember which
but my birthstone is a sugar crystal. what’s that 

make my rising sign? an ocean swallowing a ship
full of black cargo? a flaming sword browning
at the edges? a chestful of languages dropped 

from Napolean’s balcony & reassembled
by dark hands? see, i can write a poem too.
i can conjure beauty from the blasphemous

or benign. each night, i unzip my skin & the sky
blushes– my arms: an outstretched mess
of feathers. my beauty: a blue moon rising—

if a miracle is too busy being miraculous
then does it matter how it's made?
what if i’m alpha & omega like that water walker? 

answer that, poet-man. answer that, PhD
at always-in-everyone’s-business university.
answer that, blanc. & hurry up before it’s time
for me to shed my human & hunger 

is a song swelling in the theater of my stomach.
hurry up before i spot someone in the distance
& mistake them for a member of the audience.

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Mckendy Fils-Aimé is a Haitian-American poet and educator. Mckendy is a former artist in residence for MassLEAP as well as the Art Alliance of Northern New Hampshire. He is a Callaloo Creative Writing Fellow whose work has appeared in Boxcar Poetry Review, The Collagist, The Journal, Callaloo, Acentos Review and elsewhere. He currently lives in Lowell, MA.