i. Sealey is the author of Ordinary Beast (Ecco Press, 2017), which was a finalist for the PEN Open Book and Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards. quicksand. You want me to say who I am and all of that? The one and only occasionI was in the same room as the Mona Lisa,it was encased in glass behind what I imaginewere velvet ropes. Nicole Sealey shares a love poem, dedicated to her husband. She has been a fellow at Cave Canem, the Poetry Project, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, CantoMundo, and the MacDowell Colony. It’s not a symbol of anything, but it’s an indicator of something. You insist on being this man. Don Share: This is the Poetry magazine podcast. Please rate and review us on Apple podcasts, or if you listen to another way, email us at [email protected] We’d love to hear your thoughts. Lindsay Garbutt: Here is Nicole Sealey reading “And.”, Don Share: If, as Nicole Sealey says, everything is both true and untrue at once, it sort of teaches us something about rhyme as well. NS: I would direct readers to Claude McKay’s “If We Must Die.” The poem speaks to our struggle as well as our strength. Visit poetrymagazine.org/podcast offer to subscribe. The editors discuss Nicole Sealey’s poem “And” from the March 2020 issue of Poetry. Don Share: But nevertheless, has a kind of botanical power to it just because of the resemblance. © Academy of American Poets, 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038, The First Person Who Will Live to Be One Hundred and Fifty Years Old Has Already Been Born. Like, why?

Not I. Like a tieor dessert or suffering. Nicole Sealey was born in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, and raised in Apopka, Florida. Lindsay Garbutt: You can read “And” in the March 2020 issue of Poetry magazine or online at poetrymagazine.org. Still, you envy the horse that draws their chariot. Nicole Sealey was born in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, and raised in Apopka, Florida. Sealey is the author of the collections Ordinary Beast (2017), a finalist for the PEN Open Book and Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards, and The Animal After Whom Other Animals Are Named (2016), winner of the Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize. / “Hands down, mustard / is the tastiest condiment,” coughed Professor Plum—. The wilting mash of air alone keeps you from scaling Olympus with gifts of dead or dying things dangling from your mouth—your breath, like the sea, inching away.

Nicole Sealey: And one day I will wake up and no longer be here. Nicole Sealey: And one day I will wake up and no longer be here. Even in our own language, it is, for me, it’s sort of a dizzying landscape, not entirely reassuring. Bone of their bone. I’m too young to convince herotherwise. In solidarity with the June 2020 protests and the Black Lives Matter movement, Poem-a-Day will be dedicated to featuring Black poets, engaging a number of Black curators throughout the summer to guest edit the series in two-week installments. Still, you envy the horse that draws their chariot.

By Nicole Sealey. Don Share: And I’m Don Share. It’s what would Pepper LaBeija do?Really the question should be what hasn’tshe done? So, right now, I’m gathering source materials—collections, essays, anthologies, etc. And the end is what brings us all these oleanders and dandelions and sandalwood, all these sort of natural words instead of, you know, handcuffs and standstills and chandeliers, all this manmade sort of chaos at the beginning. There’s far less betweenourselves and oblivion—skin that often defeatsits very purpose. Scientists say the average humanlife gets three months longer every year.By this math, death will be optional. “But,” she says,“there’s so much to do,” meaningshe believes there’s much she hasn’t done.Thirty years ago she was the age I am nowbut, unlike me, too industrious to think aboutbirds disappeared by rain. Lindsay Garbutt: The theme music comes from the Claudia Quintet. Poets.org: Who are you reading right now? Jenny Johnson invokes the desired self-image, Nicole Sealey candidly shares details of one’s bodily experience relevant to medical professionals, and sam sax celebrates a butt plug, whereas Rachel McKibbens explores an early sexual experience. She is the Executive Director at the Cave Canem Foundation, and lives in Brooklyn, New York.