JOLIAMOUR DUBOSE-MORRIS
s’mores
I can use the smoke of the Bronx to melt marshmallows. Sticky fingers of chocolate and dirt—ashes of graham cracker and gravel—Highbridge burns, and those left sit around in campfires.
The July backside of 1975—it's a stick up! Stick up! Afros of sorts, when the boys catch notice of my D trains. Barbershop packed, boombox basing, New York lives in a Donna Summer.
The back of my neck, a forest of loop-dee-loops, and little girls hula-hoop on the steps that aren’t broken.
Sidewalk-marching, panthers on a day off, swap out the leather for Levis, smizing in eyeshadow, ears singing in jewels pierced from Momma’s sewing needle and kitchen mandarin.
The river runs down, MC’s smashing the fire hydrants with hammers, and it all washes away. And they all wash away—
Shoelaces dangle, electric chords for where their footsteps used to be. Kangols by the sewer pitch, for where their heads used to be. We all saw it.
When the foot was on the back, when the metal was on the wrist, and a crowd of us watched, and Five-O was up to no good in that blue that’s almost Black, which should make us the same, but don’t.
When them street lights come on, quick legs that scatter, sky so blue that it’s almost Black, which should make us safe, but don’t.
Graffiti gangs don’t mind a little darkness—the moon a vanilla scoop.
Red and blue, matches my outfit. It’s a stick up, stick up! Make ‘em dance when that stick sing, and I saw it, spray cans clanky, badges shiny, fingers itchy off that trigger, pointed dagger, twist it
like a soda pop, and the bullet will bliss you! All of you! The boys like to share—I got one too! Right in between these D trains.
And there, did I feel the spark. The smoke that brewed. And there, did I catch it and eat it, dissolving the sting on my tongue, and I put my hands to the sky, my knees to the ground, and
sucked on the vanilla scoop, and I caught the brain freeze to go with it, and it tasted of all the death. Crunchy. I know I left crumbs.
JoliAmour DuBose-Morris is a writer from New York. She has worked with Document Journal, Cultured Magazine, Elephant Magazine, StyleCaster, and more. Most recently, she was a 2024 PEN American Emerging Voices Finalist, a 2025 Lewis Latimer Scholar, and a 2025 Brooklyn Poets Fellow.
