Joshua Jennifer Espinoza
(Place the sky in glass too thick for me to bite through. Give me a void big enough
to contain what I am about to spill.)

On a full moon evening, my grandfather divided the landscape in two.
One side was sunlit, the other bathed in dark purple shadow.
He gripped my shoulder and pointed to the stars. Those aren’t enough, he said.
As we drove down a hillside blooming with faces of women I’d never be
I cried. I’ll give you something to cry about, he laughed, turning the clouds red.
He crested us through blood-rain, still laughing, laughing so hard
his head became a blur of mockery. I am him, somehow.
And yet, not at all. Not at all. I am violet but not violent. I am not regarded
as a person, but a threat. (The first time my grandfather walked into
a building where only white people worked, everyone asked him
what he was doing there.) As we pulled to the roadside, drenched
in memory, I wondered what I was doing with him. What
he was doing with me. I couldn’t possibly dream in enough color
to ever show myself. So I closed my eyes and let the landscape go fully
dark. I pressed my fingers against my eyelids and made my own stars.
I took a photograph of my father dressed as a woman (that my
mother once showed me) and I memorized it upon the skin of
my bones. Now when my sky turns purple and dark and light and blood-red
it is not memory, but song I turn to. I sing the word woman over and over
until I lose the meaning and slip backwards into my all alone body.
from the journal SOUTHEAST REVIEW
READ ABOUT TODAY'S POEM
Share Share
Tweet Tweet
Forward Forward
I wrote this poem as an exploration of the racialized and gendered trauma that has been passed down in my family through multiple generations. I wanted to question the notion of forgiveness for people who have abused me since childhood and have refused to accept me as a woman. What would it mean to recognize and name the demons they are carrying, even as I’ve made the choice to remove myself from their presence for my own safety and well-being?

Joshua Jennifer Espinoza on "A Family History Is Sacred"
Deepen your MFA in Poetry at George Mason University by earning a Publishing Credential through our partnership with Poetry Daily. Learn more at our 7PM Open House on Nov 21.
RSVP FOR OPEN HOUSE
An Interview with Kemi Alabi

"Pleasure informs both the craft and content of my writing. I love the pleasure of poems, particularly their sonic delight. I think my work will always be shamelessly lyrical and ecstatic. It might always prioritize music over meaning, though my current craft concern is finding the clarity between those poles."

via Apogee
READ ALL TODAY'S HEADLINES
Cover of Mither Tongue
What Sparks Poetry:
Christine De Luca on Jidi Majia’s “The Enduring One”

"Reading the poem I was given, ‘The Enduring One’, I sensed a flavour of the Old Testament books of Genesis and Proverbs, of Norse sagas, of the Finnish Origin stories as told in the Kalevala. There was the same sensual lyricism, the fabulous nature of the tales and the sheer urgency of telling. Also the sense of long kinship, the importance of genealogy and the need to remember, especially heroic forebears."
READ THIS WEEK'S ISSUE
View in browser

You have received this email because you submitted your email address at www.poems.com. 
If you would like to unsubscribe please click here.

© 2022 Poetry Daily, Poetry Daily, MS 3E4, 4400 University Dr., Fairfax, VA 22030

Design by the Binding Agency