Dwayne Lawson-Brown

An Awakening or Taste the Rainbow

In a room of sweaty bodies

Neatly laid like dinner napkins 

Along the table dressing of four beds

On a Colorado dorm room floor

He rushes in like window breeze

Shifting attention and stances alike

We, a kaleidoscope

Brightly set for his wanting gaze

"Kisses for all my misses!"

Spoken over our early-aughts tuned speaker 

As he spread like jam

Across the breadth of us

In order, each face met his

Lips laid supple samples

Of tequila and temptation

I was the last

A cherry question atop

The saccharine sweet crowd

Perceived monochrome in a prismatic room

I received his blessing on parted lips

And tasted the rainbow.

Dwayne Lawson-Brown is the author of Twenty: 21 (2023), and co-author, with Rebecca Bishophall, of Breaking the Blank (2022). Among other honors, they have been recognized with a DMV Renaissance Award, a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Emerging Leader Award, and a Delta Sigma Theta Artist Award. Lawson-Brown works for the DC Commission on the Arts as the Community Engagement Specialist and is co-founder of DC’s longest-running open mic series, Spit Dat. They are a DC native.