Arriel Vinson
we hennessy the soil
brown water earth’s newest flood
trees soak up the deluge and remember
the Black boys weren’t weapons
we let our shot glasses spill over
muddy the land
dark and familiar like a womb
so they can exist again
it Blackens our throats then rests
in our bellies
this is remembering
Arriel Vinson is a Tin House Winter Workshop alumna and Hoosier who writes about being young, black, and in search of freedom. She earned her MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College and received a B.A. in Journalism from Indiana University. Her poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Catapult, Booth, Shondaland, Cosmonauts Avenue, Waxwing, Electric Literature, and others. She is a 2019 Kimbilio Fellow and tweets at @SincerelyArri.
