by .chisaraokwu.

only the morning women

& their blue-clean teeth remain

women stone-lit & moonshined

women erased from their belly laughs

pushing dead flowers

these unfashionable cotton spaces

we rest our tears upon

their white-green foundation / they

twice exiled dark-boned domestics

with a look in the eye & a war-cry

despite several home-goings

we debate rations

sullied hands pushing late evenings

& middays back

beneath the earth to wait.

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.chisaraokwu. (she/her) is an Igbo-American artist & healthcare futurist. Her poetry and essays have appeared in Glass, Obsidian, Tinderbox Poetry, Midnight & Indigo, and others. In 2020, she was awarded a Cave Canem Fellowship in poetry.