by Oamiya Haque
my edges are molded like the jamuna
her spirit delineating into the path of my veins
the tumbling waves of my hair
eyes the shade of ever-yielding earth
pupils that refuse to dilate in sunlight
and a nose sloped like hills of my father’s village
oh, my edges are molded like the jamuna,
jamuna who knew my mother and her mother and her mother
who never knew me
but grieves me regardless
does she know i carry her even across an ocean?
my edges are molded like the jamuna, who knew violence all too well
violence i never knew even when it lived it me
even my knuckles are made soft
they hit your nose like the scent of blooming water lilies
my edges are molded like the jamuna,
jamuna who i wish i could rip out of me
and set free in the hudson
bleeding the way she is so used to
every part of me that used to be her
learning to become something else
not so unfamiliar and
not so strange and new
jamuna who watched blood of my blood survive
jamuna who screams when she drips down my face
because she doesn’t know if i do
my edges are molded like the jamuna
who has mastered the art of becoming
who can be pulled this way and that
jamuna who lives for others
sustains others
gives herself to others
whose taste becomes bitter
and bitter
who cannot help but conform to the
sharpness of my shoulder blades and
suspicion of my semblance
how she regrets that she has built me only for her shores
my edges are molded like the jamuna
jamuna who is memory
when the years pass
and the people wearily go on
she does not forget
oh, how my motherland’s softness is sewn into my skin
how she must weep knowing the hardness of my heart
she dreams that, in another life,
i might run alongside her riverside
the water makes no ripples when i sink in
//
my people were poets, too