by Persis M. Karim

I hate you
because you aren’t
my mother

and even though
you didn’t pretend
to be her, you gave
more of what
I needed.

And I hate you now
because I don’t’ know
how to hate her
and you aren’t
my mother.

by Persis M. Karim

Are the deep breaths
you’ve held in
when you knew
better than
to unleash
your tongue

Say it like it is

and the body can
no longer—

contain them.

by Persis M. Karim

She can feel his voice
breaking across
her body,

calling something out
in her. She wants to know
this story.

In the story of lost passports
and fathers, the ones they’ve never
had, she senses another
story. The way they name

themselves. The languages
that lie hidden in the throats
of their past.

by Persis M. Karim

He remembers, as a boy,
the sweet smell of cedar burning,
smoke blocking out
ivory and black. Fire is not
hot, it’s the inside
turned out, shifting
hues that dance
from this lap and this, song
my favorite moon, idling
while his father picks the red guitar
whose light reflects
the blazing flame.

by Persis M. Karim

Which comes first?
The slow decline
of the body,
the sag of tissue
and skin
or the dull memory
that eats away
at sureness
just below
the bone?