“Turgid Maw”

Curved 

maw, cleft, 

liquid moist opening, 

moisture soft now hard 

turgid now pressing, pushing into 

petal softened tacky like taffy yielding 

inverted snake muscle pulsing gripping 

clenching unclenched skin sheen slick sweat hair 

some short some long browner bits lighter bits

parted moisten meeting tasting touching 

probing proboscis 

blushed and bumpy a flushed red 

velvet cake inside after the 

chest rises, slowly falls 

slower the mystery 

of morning 

awaits.

About the Poet

Yael Valencia Aldana is a Caribbean Afro-Latinx writer and poet. Yael and her mother and her mother’s mother and so on are descendants of the indigenous people of modern-day Colombia. She earned her MFA in creative writing from Florida International University (FIU). Her work has appeared or is upcoming in Typehouse, The Florida Book Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, Scapegoat Review, Antithesis Blog, and Slag Glass City, among others. She teaches creative writing at FIU, and she lives in South Florida with her son and too many pets. Follow her work on Instagram and Twitter.

About the Artist

As far back as Rachel Hall can remember, she has been captivated by the sublime found in nature, experiencing awe at the vastness of our planet and universe. Hall collaborates with randomness by placing instinctual marks and finding meaning and form in them on the canvas. She believes that the work already exists before she finds it with meditative exploration through flow. In a flow state where time melts away, only instinct is left to formulate the painting in front of her. Flow piece is about radical acceptance of her body as a female who was shunned from her sexual self by her religious upbringing. Fluid marks mimic orgasmic waves of sexual pleasure. Follow her work on Instagram.