Lue Hughes
Given

Too slave to mule a word, I relapse
            into him as he into me,

 

and for brief breaths it was just us,
            bound, stupid stallions laved

 

in love, twisting into each other
            as he strokes then settles—he is watching

 

me, holding me there as the sun,
            familiar now of our mythology,

 

leans into the wicker of trees,
            casting pink and orange and amber,

 

casting what some have gossiped
            as wonder or a type of wonder

 

that makes the crows allay their blackness.
            This vein of wonder wanders as a stream

 

in his eyes when he comes suddenly and not so.
            Dusk is juvenile. He gets up

 

and silence slides down his back.
            I look out the window.

 

 

 

 

 
Found In Volume 50, No. 02
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  • l hughes headshot spring 2026
Lue Hughes
About the Author

 

Lue Hughes (she/her) is the author of A Shiver in the Leaves (Boa Editions, 2022), listed as best books of 2022 in The New Yorker, and the chapbook, Touched (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2018), recommended by the American Library Association. She is the founder of Shade Literary Arts, an online platform for queer writers of color, cohosts The Poet Salon Podcast with Gabrielle Bates and Dujie Tahat, and serves as the Poetry Editor for CHUM News. Her honors include the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Rosenberg Fellowship, the 92Y Discovery Poetry Prize, Cascade PBS’s Black Arts Legacies honoree, and named Most Influential by Seattle Magazine. Her writing has been published in The Paris ReviewOrionAmerican Poetry ReviewSeattle Met, and others. She’s been featured in The Seattle TimesForbesWomenEssenceKUOW Public Radio, and more. Lue lives in Seattle, where she was born and raised.