Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth

by Warsan Shire

mouth bloody with grapes,

Sit like a girl. I finger the hole in my shorts, shame warming my skin.

Her body is one long sigh.

what more do you want?

speckled with glitter and blood.

I stayed like a secret in his bed for days

I’m bloated with language I can’t afford to forget.

Sometimes it feels like someone else is wearing my body.

I watch the news and my mouth becomes a sink full of blood. The lines, the forms, the people at the desks, the calling cards, the immigration officer, the looks on the street, the cold settling deep into my bones, the English classes at night, the distance I am from home.

I hear them say go home, I hear them say fucking immigrants, fucking refugees. Are they really this arrogant? Do they not know that stability is like a lover with a sweet mouth upon your body one second; the next you are a tremor lying on the floor covered in rubble and old currency waiting for its return. All I can say is, I was once like you, the apathy, the pity, the ungrateful placement and now my home is the mouth of a shark, now my home is the barrel of a gun. I’ll see you on the other side.

Your grandfather is from another generation– Russian degrees and a school yard Cuban national anthem, communism and religion. Only music makes him cry now.

Your mother’s father, the almost martyr, can load a gun under water in under four seconds.