Poetry: “Madame X–” by Lauren K. Alleyne

Madame X—

she a hustler a hussy shaking her bustled booty up and down town all smiles and wiles and whiffs of possible//naughty naughty now you see her whipping her hair waist corseted in shiny leather now you see her buttoned to the throat flashing a rogue ankle a sweet-boned wrist//now you see her veiled all eyes and imagination and longing heart strumming a set-me-free song just for you for you//for you//maybe she will open her mind her mouth her sweet-meat sumptin’ sumptin’ maybe she’ll let you touch-kiss-take everything you can wrap your words around//starting here// starting with her goddamn name

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Lauren K. Alleyne is the author of Difficult Fruit (Peepal Tree Press, 2014). She holds an MFA in Poetry and a graduate certificate in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Cornell University, and an MA in English and Creative Writing from Iowa State University. Alleyne’s fiction, non-fiction, interviews, and poetry have been widely published in journals and anthologies such as Women’s Studies Quarterly, Guernica, The Caribbean Writer, Black Arts Quarterly, The Cimarron Review, Crab Orchard Review, Gathering Ground, and Growing Up Girl, among others. Her work has earned several honors and awards, most recently the Picador Guest Professorship in Literature at the University of Leipzig, Germany, a 2014 Iowa Arts Council Fellowship, and a 2010 Small Axe Literary Award. Alleyne is a Cave Canem graduate, and is originally from Trinidad and Tobago. She is currently Poet-in-Residence, and an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Dubuque in Iowa.