There is a little girl, on a flowered hill,
who you can no longer speak to
because you, the third of four, were too little
to fill the body of water
that welled between mothers
and satellites
and empresses that made you sign away
her left hand with your right,
blow her into glass
and paper to stay the shore
that remained unburnt.
But still I heard her
five decades later,
in another country that
sugared words down your throat,
my proud number crumbled under
a mother tongue,
just like they said it would
just like they said she shouldn’t
and called in sisters
to transcribe her wrongs
rend her out of
the whiplash between seas
and eyes meaning you
to be bloodless
So you might stand before us
and claim you cannot speak
while the basin of your mouth overflows
water from two islands, fluent
like those measures of hands and fragrance
in the half focus
behind our words, in the kitchen
as you come to
make something
that she would know
to be home.
©Katrina Bell, 2023