She brings her host a basket:
earrings, mats, testimony
Some may ask: what is a basket to a bomb?
Why bring medicine when they send ships bombing
their laps
to jellyfish
They didn’t know what to call them, she said.
They didn’t know the name.
this ocean
an open wound
but who gives a damn
moonlight scorched from wombs
who gives a damn
who gives a damn
who gets to damn who
She brings her host a basket
Then, bone by bone
her low tide lips
reveal the names
her gods & wayfinders
her mother & country
her island sea
This is a basket of names,
a basket of stories.
For afterbirths
of fallout –
war-petalled &
sacred-starving,
her story is the medicine we ache for.
for Kathy
No‘u Revilla (20th century) USA
Source: The Missing Slate
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