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"Chimeras"

By Emerald GoingSnake

"Chimera One"

After Sarah Ghazal Ali, “Matrilineage [umbilicus]”

 

the first inheritance     a puncture wound:

enamel chipped, the teacup un-whole

my grandmother had a recycled rug

—next to the pantry covered with a blanket—

on her kitchen floor     brown sugar

crystallized in the cotton ties

I remember flour on her forehead

sometimes I would crawl into the

cupboard     unwrap the paper bag

—my hand, a sifter—

white smeared against my cheek

I didn’t know how to use a broom then

only knew cherry stem plucked from

the fruit           cherry pit stuck in my teeth

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"Chimera Two"

After Donna Spruijt-Metz, “Hoof”

 

 

Is it that I have had a richness

in this greenery, or an anguish

unspoken?

 

The dogwood blooms through

the left side of my body. I find

roots spreading instead of veins.

 

In a dream, I ask: where is home?

 

Fence lines wrinkle across my brow;

to unfurrow would be to completely

undo myself.

 

Through closed eyes I watch

my legs fold themselves. I tire of

the ribbon that ties together my intestines.

 

In my hair lives a tiny bird. It brings

an apple seed back to its nest. I hear

swallowing,

then quiet.

"Chimera Three"

After Carl Phillips, “Porcelain”

 

 

As when a long forgetfulness lifts suddenly, and what

we remember is the same was what we do not. The potted

plant on the windowsill no longer grows—only maintains—

and I am taught to do the same. There is a pomegranate,

its juice splattered against brick, and I paint until I remember

their color. I grew up in a brick house—rust, burnt sienna, the color

of the earth—and yet I cannot see the cracks that appeared

on the west side when I was ten years old. I only see the windchimes

that never existed. I wish there were ivy—

but there is only rust.

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About the Artist

Emerald "noquisi" GoingSnake (they/she) is a Giduwa (Cherokee) and Mvskoke (Creek) lesbian creative from Tahlequah, Oklahoma. She is currently in her junior year at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM studying Creative Writing with emphases in Poetry and Creative Nonfiction. Her work is forthcoming from Tribal College Journal and Terrain.org. She plans to graduate IAIA in spring of 2025 with hopes to enter an MFA program post-graduation.

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