Joshua Merchant

The Table

I know I will at least have a productive day
if I work out for at least seven minutes. there
is an app on my phone that gives me eight
to twelve different exercises over a seven
minute time span. I paid for this app

for a year one time by accident with money
I didn’t have and figured, hey, maybe God is
tryna tell me something. this one nigga called
me blonde one time; I don’t think he meant it
in a Frank Ocean kind of way and I’m not sure

that would’ve mattered. this one time I was
a zombie. this one time I planked into a wall.
this one time I was a tabletop waiting to move.
a ring appeared on my forehead after I offered
him a coaster. a wood chipper scoffed at me.

I wasn’t mahogany enough. there was too much
sap in my blood. he turned around as he walked
away asking, aye, you got anything I can chew on?
I did                     jumping jacks and hit the ceiling fan.
the light bulbs flickered in morris code

demanding my chin touch my knees next time
I perform this exercise meant to make me better.
meant to be healthier for me. meant to show me
I’m moving in the right direction. I kept looking
for a compass and all I found were knives. I picked

one up and drew a line in the sand and this guy called
me a murderer. I apologized and pled to the sky

for forgiveness and the sand swallowed me whole.
I tasted the sand and the flavor was
familiar:
wood chippings.
how sweet

Joshua Merchant (THEY/THEM/THEIRS) is a Black Queer native of East Oakland exploring what it means to love as an intersectional being. A lot of what they’ve been exploring as of late has been in the realm of what it means to be a “Delectable Negro” in a world with an insatiable appetite for Blackness and the many ways we show up spiritually, mentally, and physically. They address the countless exaggerations of white fantasy as a means of humanizing the Black Queer experience through a lens only someone who grew up ashy and yet a teardrop slicker than the average lesson any Corner-Store-Prophet could provide. They've had the honor to witness their work being held and understood in literary journals such as 580Split, Soup Can Magazine, Snow Flake Magazine, Corporeal, Obsidian Literature & Arts In The African Diaspora, Verum Literary Press, Ice Floe Press, Hotazel Review, MORIA and elsewhere. They have also received the 2023 San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award for poetry and was nominated for the 2023 Best of the Net Poetry Award by Spare Parts Lit. Their forthcoming book is scheduled to be released in 2025-2026 by Game Over Books.