“String theory is an attempt to unite the two pillars of 20th century physics—quantum mechanics and Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity—with an overarching framework that can explain all of physical reality.”
My love—a pulsing gravity
pulling your body back down
to mine on the ground.
Do not be afraid.
I have had practice.
I know how to braid
myself together with others,
their names and faces
the wax-coated thread
keeping me from going
too far over the licking
ridge of Lake Michigan,
where I last refused
to surrender.
Your ill-advised exposure
to my reverberating inoculations,
my thinly veiled promises
of answered questions
is more so what you should fear.
There are no revelations
for you here. I am the ellipsis.
I perpetually contrast and expand,
casting wave after wave out across
the long and convulted verse.
Rarely , am I giving
simple answers,
my love
Faylita Hicks (she/they) is an Afro-Latinx writer, artivist, and cultural strategist. They are the author of HoodWitch (Acre Books, 2019), a finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Poetry, the forthcoming poetry collection A Map of My Want (Haymarket Books, 2024), and the debut memoir about their carceral experiences A Body of Wild Light (Haymarket Books, 2025). A voting member of the Recording Academy, Hicks is the recipient of grants, residencies, and fellowships from the Art for Justice Fund, the Texas After Violence Project, Black Mountain Institute, Broadway Advocacy Coalition, Civil Rights Corps, Right of Return USA, and Tin House, among others. The winner of the 2020 Sappho Award from Palette Poetry, their poetry and essays have been published or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Longreads, Poem-A-Day, Poetry Magazine, Scalawag, Slate, The Slowdown Podcast, Yale Review, amongst others.