MAYDAY

for my ill brown daughter
by Ela Kini

Contributed By:

for my ill brown daughter

thap. thap. thap.
hey there             fever girl.

hey there             ’s water running down your chest,
wind slapping your window,      hey there

fever girl,            I hear you keep your eyes in a brown paper bag
with your language         & show it off at the lunch table:

look      at this heat          I carry. see me
for more than the baggie,            look for a minute, just
perceive               this baggie.                       fever girl,

you’re running on air. night hits your sockets,
light switch off on slip from your little pedestal

I hear you’re breaking                 fever girl.

thap. thap. thap.

hey there,             i taste your illness on my breast;
what if vertebrae was another word for daughter?

keep it in the bag. in the bag. the bag on the lunch table.

thap. thap. fever girl, keep singing your                   mud words.

thap.

ELA KINI is a first-generation New Yorker. Her work appears in Palette Poetry, Rust & Moth, and The Margins, as well as elsewhere. It discusses lineage, womanhood, and survival. She has been recognized by YoungArts, the Nancy Thorp Poetry Prize, and others.

Further Reading

THE COAT
by Dani Janae

Like a black bag thrown over a prisoner’s head, the coat fits taut against his shoulders. He must have seen a tailor. He must have had the foresight to bargain like a knife: with teeth. A chirp sounds in the courtroom. What I think a bird is just the laugh in his throat. The coat, […]

Map, in Parts
by Christina Hennemann

after Olga Tokarczuk In a workshop I draft my poetic map of home & find Agatha of Sicily: virgin, whore, captive, saint. The Etna’s lava fell asleep in the girl’s veil. Her breasts sit in a bakery for sale. She would not love a man for the price of a lie. Rebel- girl admonished saint. […]

Skip to content