Two Poems
Words By Faylita Hicks, Art By Isabel Burke
Waking, I stir beneath the soft warning of another aubade slipping deep into the moist soil of my corporeal shape. Beneath the glimmer of my bedsheets, I am a dreaming animal dissatisfied with breath alone. And I still want to ride the silhouette of earnest sleep until the world returns to green. I wink and…
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Faylita Hicks
Faylita Hicks (she/they) is the author of A Map of My Want (Haymarket Books, 2024) and HoodWitch (Acre Books, 2019), a finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Poetry. The winner of the 2020 Sappho Award from Palette Poetry, Hicks is the recipient of fellowships, grants, and residencies from the Art for Justice Fund, Black Mountain Institute, Broadway Advocacy Coalition, Civil Rights Corps, Illinois Humanities, Lambda Literary, Tin House, the Right of Return USA, and others. A queer Afro-Latinx activist, writer, interdisciplinary artist, and cultural strategist based in Chicago, their work has been featured in the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A- Day Series, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, Longreads, Poetry Magazine, Slate, The Slowdown Podcast, Yale Review, amongst others. They serve on the board of the Guild Literary Complex and the Songwriters and Composers Committee of the Recording Academy-Texas Chapter.
Isabel Burke
Isabel Burke is a comic artist and illustrator currently living in Savannah, Georgia, whose work reflects her eternal fondness for anything flavored with history, magic, or mystery. Some of her past clients include Penguin Random House, Critical Role, Hunters Entertainment, Rainbow Book Box, and more. If you can’t find her drawing at her desk, it’s likely she’s trying out a new dinner recipe, taking a walk outside, reading a book, procrastinating doing the laundry, or herding her cat, Bubbles, off the counter.
