Rachel Tramonte

Open

I want to spill open with you.

Start here. Find some fissure and split

me open simply with your silver hammer.

I want you to open me.

This is how I come to you

obsidian, black gem.

It’s not about the color

of the moon.

Tap. Tap here.

Tap. Spill me open

so we can see, together, if there is

sand or more rock inside.

I do want you to know me

for who I am really.

It is because of our difference

black to white, fire to water

straight to trans, Muslim to agnostic

that I want to get to know you

through the things you do to me

and the things you let me do to you.

Let’s crack past crystalline layers

to bits of sediment, sand, gold.

One day we will marvel at the way you split me open

and how you let me reach inside of you

past your armor to the things you were

not sure you held inside of you.

RACHEL TRAMONTE lives with her partner and their two daughters in Cleveland, Ohio. Her poetry has appeared in The American Journal of Poetry, SLAB, The Alembic, Green Hills Literary Lantern, Carbon Culture Review, Broad River Review, and other journals.