“borrowed image,” a Poem By S*an D. Henry-Smith
From the Collection Paces the Cage
Talk the stories of night. That fella there was a dense kiss. Associate of
liminals, name another such intimacy. Galaxy, I showed you my bad side.
So then, was it not worth throatedness? Grant me ruthless access to the
psychological image, discomfortable mercy. Granted, he loved him madly—
All hands fell fair in the fight, as to offer lament—we would not come clean
from this. None of us. Slip trace. Peacemaker, Ankh-ringed, looking down
a bridge. Smug about her room tone: It is not fair to place on you the problem
of audience, it is simply not fair. & so what of it? A curator is but a series of poses.
I will miss what we once were in the aftermath, handsome viper in my garden. He
dares me to forget. We deal in the unseen business, puppets making
puppets of a/ether. Standing here, I have to ask you, on the off-chance no
one else has: you felt the need to carry here this dirt? Pound for pound, no?
Time s hole, no? Ardid spore. There could be no victor. There could be no
forget, taking envy in the terrible beauty distributed. I ll be around. They
picture your hunting eyes—your face of framing. Slip trace. Expression s farce
dance. We did not concern each other. Hardly worth the call, wired to the
wall. In the evasive square, I had hoped we might see past our differences.
What can I say? I m nostalgic for Pan-Africanism & the ozone layer.
Reparations: The Game Show. Gold to bone as you go higher. I ll be around.
Farce slip. Freedom runs its unfinished course. Unsigned elisions,
contractions. Catastrophic how meek I am just waiting. Being who work
makes us! The distance is unbearable, & so the proximate. Breath automatic
singed in a tight grin. Can t fast track the lived. Humidity seeks a window
through which to flee. Steam paints a mirror of drip.
w/ no fore-warning, a dog guards what was once my hallway. He belongs
to no one, himself; this is now where he lives; he stands it w/ his life; snug
where I bury my bone.
__________________________________
“borrowed image” From S*an D. Henry-Smith’s new collection of poems, Paces the Cage, available now from The Song Cave. Copyright © 2026 by S*an D. Henry-Smith
S*an D. Henry-Smith
S*an D. Henry-Smith is a poet and photographer exploring Black/queer diasporic collaborative practices rooted in experimentalism, improvisation, and transdisciplinarity, working by extension in sound, performance, and publishing. They have received awards and fellowships from the Rijksacademie, Center for Photography at Woodstock, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, the Fulbright Program, The Poetry Project, and Poets House. Recent solo exhibitions include “rea(l)m” at Metro54 (2025), “tremor low” at ROZENSTRAAT (2023) and “in awe of geometry & mornings” at White Columns (2021). Henry-Smith has read, performed, and exhibited previously at Artists Space, Stedelijk Museum, Konrad Fischer Galerie, Perdu, MoMA PS1, 47 Canal, SAVVY Contemporary, Cubitt Artists, Juf, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Issue Project Room, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Basilica Soundscape, and elsewhere. They perform musical compositions as sunchoke; as a bandmate, they are half of twill (whose twill split was released summer 2024), half of PhantomSun, half of Depth Address, and a fifth of Black Boots.Their book Wild Peach (2020), was published by Futurepoem, and shortlisted for the PEN Open Book Award, and they are the author of two chapbooks: Body Text (2016) and Flotsam Suite: A Strange & Precarious Life, or How We Chronicled the Little Disasters & I Won’t Leave the Dance Floor Til It’s Out of My System (2019), the co-author (alongside Imani Elizabeth Jackson) of Consider the Tongue (2019), and the director of Lunar New Year (2021). PACES THE CAGE (2025), their second full-length collection of poems, published by The Song Cave, is out now.
