Asha Futterman

IN A CAVE WHERE SOMETHING ONCE HAPPENED

after performing in an afro-futurist rendition
of a midsummer night’s dream
in front of a mansion owned by a man
who killed a slave          i saw a color almost like black
when i was close enough to touch it
i could not see my love’s eyes
just the holes they sat in          i realized then
i don’t want to go inside black but i do want
the gray world black creates
those ambivalent holes in his eyes
are an area of hope

ASHA FUTTERMAN is a poet and an actor from Chicago. Her chapbook, song of gray, is forthcoming from The Song Cave. Her poems appear in ANNLY, Conduit, Interim Poetics, and The Journal. She holds an MFA in poetry from Washington University in St. Louis.