Girl Play (w. "los mannequins" by Stacie Bird)

Their conversation felt real: females on the edge. A rooftop patio. Words listing. Girl talk. The heat too much for clothes. Nude. In sharp daylight. The shadows gave them away. Casually, bodies-to-banister: one sat, ankles crossed, dangling, arms draped over the rail – the other: her tummy pressed to it. Their complexions oiled. With a sheen. High at the top. A building painted so true it toyed. With leaning. Indistinguishable into sky. No, no. No bleeding blood, the two decided. Letting limbs. And torsos turn plastic. Complimenting each other’s. Ever-glowing— Restraint. Tongues hardening in mouths. The naked heat. Too much for— Instead, decorations. The little voices inside. Draping paper banners down the scene. Cutouts. Flowing dry. Her lips too unsure now, despite. Messy questions. Her lover began modeling mannequin hands, an empty. Leaving only: the banners pattering. Red flags, frantic. Flip-flapping. For the children to refuse. Playacting. These dolls.

Nicole Miyashiro (she/her) treasures co-curating Fem-Fusion: Visual Art + the Written Word (2021) with Stacie Bird and creating alongside the women who embraced the project through/emerging from the pandemic. She is grateful for the support she received as a writer-in-residence at the PA Center for the Book – Penn State University Libraries, a grantee of the Can Serrat International Art Residency, and a resident of Vermont Studio Center. Her work appears in Bi Women Quarterly, CALYX, The Hudson Review, the Nasty Women Poets anthology (Lost Horse Press), and elsewhere.