I wish things were different between us

he said as I kissed him goodnight.
Static lips woke the soft sucker in me.
Did I hear that right? That’s your wish?
The little witch laughed inside me dropping
her broom. I couldn’t fly to a messier
world. Oh, how you blow your own
horn, brassy ass! You can’t see beyond
your own suffering if you call this suffering.
I take back my kiss and give it to Superman
hovering prone, struggling to inhale the air he flies.
I take back my goodnight and give it to a thousand
bad nights when tortured black men and racist statues
fell to their knees; please, you’ve got it good sitting
there in that damn red chair like you have it all
figured out, no bills, no rent, no burdens other
than the poison slithering in your veins and the
snakes striking your wrist while you sleep.
A hummingbird landed for a beat by my feet.
He remembers the taste of my nectar,
dangling from an old shepherd’s hook.
He’s watched himself drink in the crimson glass
contemplating his next pass.
He’s got it all figured out as long
as things stay the same between us.

Nancy Byrne Iannucci is the author of Temptation of Wood (Nixes Mate Review 2018) and Toxic (dancing girl press). Her poems have appeared in a number of publications, including Gargoyle, Ghost City Press, Clementine Unbound, Three Drops from a Cauldron, 8 Poems, Glass: A Journal of Poetry (Poets Resist), Hobo Camp Review, and Typehouse Literary Magazine. Nancy is a Long Island native who now resides in Troy, NY, where she teaches history at the Emma Willard School.