My man shows me
how to make my fist go tight,
even over a roll of quarters.

I do not know if it is the blood
from a split lip or the bourbon
running over it that makes me
wonder if I might have to fight
a bitch over him one day.

He warns me that when the time comes,
there is only a slim window
of opportunity to convince
another woman that I am not
who she thinks I am.

He says the cartilage parts
of my spine will know when
they need to blister, then callus;
I must pull away fast
like a blade sluicing through
the soft leather of her lower intestines.

–Bianca Spriggs,
How Swallowtails Become Dragons (2011), Accents Publishing

Affrilachian Poet and Cave Canem Fellow Bianca Spriggs is a freelance instructor of composition, literature, and creative writing. She holds degrees from Transylvania University and the University of Wisconsin. She is a Kentucky Humanities Council Lecturer and the creator and programmer of the Gypsy Poetry Slam featured annually at the Kentucky Women Writers Conference. Heralded as “the new standard bearer for the Affrilachian Poets” by founding member Frank X Walker, Bianca is the author of Kaffir Lily (Wind Publications) and her work may also be found in the anthologies New Growth: Recent Kentucky Writings and America! What’s My Name? and the journals Union Station Magazine, Appalachian Heritage Magazine, and others.