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# One Poem by jayy dodd
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/one-poem-by-jayy-dodd/
- Published: 2017-11-29T12:02:55.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:40:35.000Z
- Description: Our poetry editor, Wendy Xu, has selected one poem by jayy dodd for her monthly series that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.
- Author: Wendy Xu
- Tags: Poetry, Hyperallergic Poetry, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:30(2016, 2017, part 3)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2017/11/soares_aga_2017_11.jpg)

Valeska Soares, “Epilogue” (2017) (detail), mixed media, 47 x 218.75 x 46 in (image courtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York, © 2017 Valeska Soares)

## Exhibition

when i show you the illicit  
behind a fiberoptic veil —  
obstruction is a kind of foreplay.  
yes — this is an intentional seduction.

this behind is a fiberoptic veil  
i build an economy on anything i can.  
yes — this intentional seduction  
is suppose to be a delight.

build this economy on anything i can’t.  
my taste is acquired, so take your time.  
suppose, this is a delight —  
the mystery, yours to solve.

you take & taste my acquired time.  
take what wilts from my lips —  
you — the only mystery unsolved.  
i can never stop questioning my mouth.

take all that wilts, my lips.  
where every fantasy i try leaves me dead —  
i can never stop talking about my mouth.  
here, my tongue is bile & tomorrow.

they leave me dead in every fantasy i try —  
the overgrown prophecy i am to witness.  
bile becomes swallow here & tomorrow —  
some end time we have already faced.

the prophecy lives to overgrow the witness.  
no future belongs to my body.  
these end-times we already face.  
my testimony is the absolute of what i know.

i belong to the future in my body —  
will truth survive the transmission?  
i testify in absolutes of what i can not know.  
what do we make of the delay?

what will survive the transmission?  
reveal the half-life of the illicit,  
unmake myself as a means of delay  
watch for the obstructive foreplay.

\* \* \*

jayy dodd is a blxk trans femme from Los Angeles, California, now based on the internet. They are a literary and performance artists, with an editorial and digital media practice. Their work has appeared or will appear in places your favorite writers write. They’re the author of [*Mannish Tongue*s](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06X9TCBWK/?tag=hyperallergic-20&ref=hyperallergic.com) (Platypus Press 2017) and *The Black Condition ft. Narcissus* (Siren Song / CCM Press 2018). They are a Pushcart Prize nominee and co-editor of Bettering American Poetry. Their work has been featured in *Teen Vogu*e and the Poetry Foundation. Find them talking trash online or taking a selfie.

*Readers are encouraged to submit 3–5 poems as a PDF to Wendy Xu for consideration at* [*poetry@hyperallergic.com.*](mailto:poetry@hyperallergic.com)