archival research/black citizen cosmos
by LESLIE MCINTOSH
in Spring 2023
baaba, things begin, 2023
archival research
What’s known doesn’t lie,
but maybe it arches
its back, rounds it—
unfinished, approximate,
leaning toward
a corridor,
a community
of doors.
Our attention
is invisible,
its aftermath—
cartographic.
Our presence here
is no miracle.
This page
is no accident.
To the right
of this voice
are other voices.
Who chose
this one?
What leads us
to listen?
black citizen cosmos
i decided the edge of the balcony
should be fed a healthy cackle
one night, and its blank
face answered me back.
my voice dug out a clank.
the out-there wasn’t a lack.
from its own head it tore a lock,
and made me the coolest labcoat—
uniform of sweet opacity. Entice
Me, Nightwatcher, who magnetize
borders, make contested within, galvanize
them. I buzz with You. a glossy magazine
shines in my home. each page, a mezzanine—
intermediate by design, essentially so, like zinc
in this stubborn body. living just to find a scoop
for the ice cream, checking my smock
in the potato closet, hidden like a costume.
fabric broken just enough to prove i oscillate.
i teeter. invariably, i topple i—a moose
in heels, washed up in waves of moscato.
enough yet but not. i vibrate the cosmetology.
Leslie McIntosh is black, mostly cis, mostly male, male attracted, autistic, an older millennial, a poet, a fictionist, &. He has received support, in the form of residencies and fellowships, from Breadloaf, Callaloo, Millay Arts, The Watering Hole, Zoeglossia, and more. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Foglifter, Obsidian, Southern Humanities Review, Witness, and elsewhere. He was a semi-finalist in the 2022 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest and has been a Pushcart nominee. They are an Assistant Poetry Editor at Newfound and live on the stolen land of the Munsee Lenape, currently known as Jersey City, NJ, USA.