How Glitter Was Invented

brody parrish craig

when I spit, I spell confetti
in my cursive mirror house

everything I touch after the storm,
it shines & stays for weeks.

You can never get me off
your floor. I’m sweeping off your feet

another asterisk
leaned up against some heaven’s

afterhours sign.
a 90s skydancer,

see, I have broke a beacon from the sun
to see you shimmer on past afternoon.

reflective tape along the binder’s dresser.
I smell a sequin in this skinny dark.

a puckered lip to stall door marks the page
of revelation: in the Walmart,

I broke the shine
right off your wrist watch

& I flexed the face.
I found a lake bed’s shimmer

in its silver. Ripped it off.
a disco balled fist opening

to shrapnel when I dance or pray.
glitter never leaves—

There is no curfew for these hands

about the author

A white person with asymmetrical brown hair and a brown beard looking to the right smiling. They are wearing a gray pearl snap shirt with orange blocking toward the top and floral embroidery on the shoulders. Their tattooed hands are folded in front of them with glittery bright green acrylics.

Brody Parrish Craig is the author of Boyish, the winner of the 2019 Omnidawn Poetry Chapbook Contest, and editor of TWANG, a regional collection of trans, gender nonconforming & nonbinary creators. Their first book, The Patient is An Unreliable Historian, is forthcoming from Omnidawn in 2024. Find more on their work at brodyparrishcraig.com.