
Angie Kang
I Dreamed of Beyoncé
Sherrel McLafferty
her fingers against my scalp
I was so small a child
being washed by her mother
She absorbed me into her chest
her ribs a hand grasped around a stone
this body is yours she offered it to me
exposed gloss a canyon of women
Downward
crawling on elbows and belly
I entered guttural sound her voice
remained above away booming
volume overtook words the women of the walls
reached out each arm a tree
I could choose to hang from
each smile the moon
surely each was an ancestor
They housed me Together we sang the song
the unknowable song
that leaves the body like erupted limbs
the song of magma
the song of hunger
Remember the song we drank
from our mothers before we were grown
Remember I held a white boy between my legs
He filled me with my own name I was starved
and didn’t know it
Yonce! Sasha!
How long has your name belonged to you
Let me call you Let me feed you before it is gone
and it will leave you
as it will leave all of us
We know We taste it from skin to bone
black and alive black and woman
the radioactive joy of being
Sherrel McLafferty is a multi-genre writer who resides in Bowling Green, OH. Her fiction piece “In the Time of Virus” was a finalist for Booth’s Unexpected Literature Prize and received a Pushcart nomination. Her poetry has been, or will be, featured in a range of journals such as Requited Journal, ArLiJo, Merrimack Review, Notre Dame Review, Juked, and Jet Fuel Review. To learn more about her or connect, please visit her website sherrelmclafferty.com.