Preliminary proceedings

Before You Book:

  • What Is Your Vagina Name

    “What is your vagina name?” I ask the sky,

    A doorway spelled in breath, a dare to speak;

    For Aya answer softly, spirit-high,

    With Friday’s rhythm folding cheek to cheek

    She wears her blouse hair like a psalm unbound,

    A hymn she braided back in Ivory light,

    Where once she taught the children how a sound

    Can lift a soul, or pull it into night.

    Now in the club she tends each wandering fire,

    A cartographer of joy, of want, of kink;

    She charts the hidden continents of desire

    Where bodes learn to breathe, and hearts to think.

    So name the gate that owns its sacred flame—

    And she will make a cosmos from that name.

    —C.