narya_flame: Young woman drinking aperol in Venice (Default)
2020-11-09 09:35 pm

My Poem of the Week: 'yasmeen' by Safia Elhillo

yasmeen

i was born
 
 
at the rupture the root where
 
 
i split from my parallel self  i split from
 
 
the girl i also could have been
 
 
& her name / easy / i know the story
 
 
all her life / my mother wanted
 
 
a girl named for a flower
 
 
whose oil scents all
 
 
our mothers /
 
 
petals wrung
 
 
for their perfume
i was planted
 
 
land became ocean became land anew
 
 
its shape refusing root in my fallow mouth
 
 
cleaving my life neatly
 
 
& my name / taken from a dead woman
 
 
to remember / to fill an aperture with
 
 
cut jasmine in a bowl
 
 
our longing
 
 
our mothers’
 
 
wilting
 
 
garlands hanging from our necks


The formatting is far from perfect (it shouldn't really be in a table...) but this is the best I could do on DW.  Here is the poet performing the piece.