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.