Celebrant
signaled power in
strokes of bone—
hair straight
like a pin; duplicitous words
blending visage into something
unrecognizable, advocate for
this: the undercurrent liturgy—
and yet the girls at Mendell
paint in bold strokes of brown,
black, with hair that gnarls
like old tree roots; girls,
with no other motives than
to be seen
Matt Vekakis is a poet and public-school teacher raised in exurban Connecticut and now a proud resident of Boston, Massachusetts. Matt is a graduate student at Northeastern University in Boston and an alumnus of Central Connecticut State University where he studied English Literature with Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Barry H. Leeds. His upcoming projects include a setting of his poems for a new vocal work to be premiered by the Quorum vocal ensemble in Summer 2019.