a poem by abba belgrave

He argues for time travel


Consider the fact that I would walk backwards
through time to torture Freud for penis envy
and save more women from hysterics. Joan
perhaps if I were feeling Catholic. I’m not sure
we need the unconscious or the Surrealists or
any subsector of that decentered universe learned
from Saussure who screwed the whole world
over with absence and presence and difference
not to mention the French are known for
smoking and slapping in cafés all that fucking
and no fight: La vie en rose ce n’est pas difficile.

Baby I’m a brown girl dragged across the sea. I
would kill. You would let me.



Abba Belgrave was born in Trinidad and Tobago but lives in Brooklyn with neither cat nor dog nor bicycle and is currently cursing allergy season. An MFA candidate at New York University, she holds a BA in Political Science from Hunter College and her work previously appeared in the Argos Book anthology Why I Am Not A Painter.