Self Portrait Without a Mouth

by Eliamani Ismail

swollen sunday curling
out of my mother
and her first wound like smoke.

waxy, slick soot; phoenix ash

even the warm black in-between
was wet like a woman sung like a woman

every home has this same wound-smell;
sweet, burning ammonia.

i am born longing
to say something lovely
about the avocados trees in arusha,

but i am here now
                             so i had no father.

i am born taking my mothers name
                                                and becoming my mothers mouth.

i am born borrowing
languages and forgetful.

my mother, my mouth
                                                    find the wrong side of the atlantic
                                                                                       and forget her mother tongue;
                                                                                                                               to be her mother mouth.

we are born
with ancient,
thin, cold tears

that leave long streaks
of foundation-free skin
with each outfit.

my mother tongue finds
the wrong side of the atlantic

and i am lonely with bad mouths
so i make a country out of myth and middle
and live in worlds that should've been.

i say something soothing
about everything beginning
and it's beginning to end.

Eliamani Ismail is writer and filmmaker from Washington D.C. via Mali and Tanzania. Finding writing in her teens, Eliamani was a youth poet with the DC Youth Slam Team. She has performed at multiple venues including the Kennedy Center and the National Planned Parenthood Festival. After earning a B.A. in Film and Africana from Scripps College in 2020, Eliamani was named a Watson Scholar where she traveled in exploration of how global writing practices create national identity. Eliamani's fiction and poetry can be found in Southern Humanities Review, PRISM, Stonecoast Review, ellipsis..., and elsewhere. She is currently a Creative Writing MFA Candidate in Fiction at The University Of Maryland.