I thought myself
a child. The river revealed me
a basket. Within, a doomed girl. Grew
& groomed. When came the bush,
I knew to burn. To shear errant tongues
probing the cage.
Mother sang of deliverance. Father prayed
for a son. I revised myself
a daughter. Renounced duty. Rolled
stones down my throat.
In a dream, the angel reveals me a book.
I learn myself grime
among false gods. Unashamed,
I cramp. Between my legs
a clot. From a clot
I’ll make men. Hollow
myself holy.
Nothing laughs like me.
Silent, brutish—a woman
baring her teeth.
Sarah Ghazal Ali is the author of Theophanies, selected as the Editors' Choice for the 2022 Alice James Award, and forthcoming with Alice James Books in January 2024. A 2022 Djanikian Scholar, her poems appear in POETRY, American Poetry Review, Pleiades, the Rumpus, and elsewhere. She is currently the editor of Palette Poetry and a Stadler Fellow at Bucknell University. Learn more at sarahgali.com.