boy maybe

51 achingly eloquent poems from a young Cave Canem fellow: W. J. Lofton's verses explore Black queer Southern identity, grief, love, and intimacy while enduring and witnessing unfreedom in America

W. J. Lofton writes vivid, accessible poems that channel the energy, urgency, ambitions, joys, and sorrows of a young Black queer artist. They are about love and flirtation, sweet tea and hot sauce, God and family, life and death, police brutality and extrajudicial killings. His verses honor some of the young lives extinguished by these killings—Breonna Taylor, Kendrick Johnson, Ahmaud Arbery. He also pays tribute to some of the towering figures of Black culture who have come before him—Richard Pryor, Assata Shakur. His style is endlessly propulsive, informed by some of the Harlem Renaissance greats—Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks—but also transforming that rich tradition for the present day.Preface

here today, gone today

after each death

dreamhouse

gravity reports:

we report:

Mama reports:

to know touch better

many things

property

for Cadarius, Keith & Miles

to keep the flies away

for Tae

using

dominium

pig

petting the dog

when your touch went
missing i remembered

first time we met

sweet

right hooks

language

half brutal

counting

dark

polka dots

fire eats

a mighty long time

double u, double d

for Kendrick

the flower will make its
debut when everyone is dying

would you kill God too?

boy falling

adjust your hips

ain’t dying

begging

fragile things

water we share

already flesh

the leash

between boys

that one uncle we all know

asking for miracles

baby’s breath

jellyfish eye

lady day visits glynn county

butcher shop

aint neva

as long as the dying
die without dignity

danger dodge

little brown bat

leaving kessler

& oceans

Acknowledgments
Notes“A museum of exactitudes, with lines so precise that you never forget them . . . Enchanting and provocative.”
—Jericho Brown, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Tradition

“boy maybe touches my heart with its soft, honest lyrics and shakes me up with its brilliant singing. . . . Here, in this poet’s shining language, is a country where we are possible.”
—Danez Smith, Lambda Award–winning author of [insert] Boy

“boy maybe refuses to compromise on the fullest, freest expressions of Black queer aliveness. I am so moved and emboldened by this work.”
—Chen Chen, author of When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities

“Beautiful . . . Seamless and evocative . . . This is a new illuminating call for liberation. I cannot speak highly enough of this voice.”
—Raymond Antrobus, Ted Hughes Award–winning author of The Perseverance

“I’m astonished at boy maybe. . . . Read this breathing book and be reminded where God is.”
—K. Iver, author of Short Film Starring My Beloved’s Red BroncoW. J. Lofton, a Chicago-born poet and multimodal artist, is the author of A Garden for Black Boys Between the Stages of Soil and Stardust. His work explores the intersections of race, class, and gender while focusing on Black queer men’s attempts at intimacy and the tensions and wonders of boyhood. Lofton has received fellowships from Cave Canem and Emory University. A recipient of Ava DuVernay’s LEAP Grant, his work has appeared in TIME, wildness, Obsidian, and Scalawag. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia, where he co-curates Rebellion: A Writing Salon.