Elisha Mykelti conjures poetry that honors sight. She serves on the editorial board for Sundress Publications. She received the 2023 Emily Morrison Poetry Prize, and her work has appeared in Berkeley Poetry Review. Elisha is pursuing an MFA in poetry at Virginia Tech, where she is working on her manuscript, “TWOHEAD: Rootwork.” She holds a BA in English from the University of Tennessee. In her free time, Elisha is a perpetual hobbyist and reads tarot.
With Three Fingers, I Point
to hell with you, swallowing
a stiltoned olive and cucumber gin
I learned spades at a family dinner, so that November could sleep;
and I could live without you
avid and drinking. My partner, a good woman,
handled the men by set,
witness, and wag. Then the family’s mouth
opened
to our plate of eight books. We rode the ninth
in our last hand.
The girls spit my husband, my husband into the punch bowl
and mine calls me over to cold cut sandwiches
What do you think at the sough of my name?
Me enid then—
my kitty jaw?
I have your last name,
inked on the ace’s foot
headside down.
###
Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats.