on “Being Held”
at the dining room table, sitting w/
my nephew & brother. my niece
proceeds to lift me off the floor. a
wrestler, my arms crease under her
biceps. a wet page, i laugh. unable to
wiggle out, i accept her embrace.
i’m being held above a loved one’s
head. the child holds a child & for
the first time in years, my legs kick.
branches in wind.
Thomas Earl Dunn II is a multimedia artist, poet, and experimental filmmaker from Midland, Michigan. Dunn is a Cave Canem Fellow and has attended the Community of Writers Poetry and Nonfiction Workshop. His work has appeared in Poet Lore, Allium, and Attached to the Living World: A New Ecopoetry Anthology (Trinity University Press, 2025). Dunn currently lives in New York City and is completing an MFA in nonfiction at Columbia University.
