Yours are not
the desperate pounds
of fists against
a homeless door,
says the drum,
nor the hollowed
promise behind it. When
you came to me
your palms
were restless
& swallowed in sleep.
In your dream
you ask me
to dance with you.
I am dancing with you.
In my dream
there is
a flood
& I do not swim
& we do not resurface.
Aliyah Cotton is a queer poet of color from Reston, VA. She earned her MFA from Boston University where she was a recipient of the Robert Pinsky Global Fellowship. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Adroit, Emerson Review, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, South Carolina Review, and Southern Humanities Review. She is a 2024 Gregory Djanikian Scholar and was nominated for the 2024 Best of the Net Anthology.