Men, beaten by their own hubris
Feast from my thick braid
And I, girl with a smile full of beads
Let autumn undo the seedlings trapped near my skull
Someone is sleeping
In the walls of this house
The cobwebs, the dust, the dead
You are a person
Until they declare you no more
Know, the earth will not forget whose blood fed it
Spirit of red clay and yucca
Though the flowers may wilt
And the eulogies go unspoken
This land
Pulls the music from your teeth and
Plays it back
Roasting chiles, the pitter patter of feet
Colorful blanket of Pueblo
Call it home, call it mother
A sunset you can hold in the cracked aria of your palms
We brew coffee for one more day
Ashia Ajani is a writer/environmental justice activist hailing from Denver, CO. She was awarded honorable mention in the National Young Arts Foundation’s poetry section in 2015. She has been published in Rigorous Magazine, Atlas & Alice Magazine, TRACK//FOUR Journal, Hot Metal Bridge Magazine, Pilgrimage Press, Sage Magazine, Brushfire Literature & Arts, and The Hopper Magazine. She released her first chapbook, We Bleed Like Mango, in October of 2017. She currently resides in Boston, MA.