Published in Spring 2024 Online Folio
the wind licks my knuckles again again
a church bell mouths out another hour now a memory
the park loses its fullness
the last two boys playing catch leave as i pass
i stand inside the yellow light pouring smartly
out of a street lamp
it digs my skin guilts me like judas—
“lord, how many times shall i forgive my brother?”
i haven’t forgiven my sister for leaving—
migrant worker picking cotton in dubai
mother will find out when she reads this poem
my mother is the negotiator between me and her husband
on my flight to brussels a man faints beside me
he looks like my mother’s husband my father
i want to cling to his body i am afraid
i have never locked my father’s hands with mine
the space between us crosses borders
follows me here
This piece is from our Spring 2024 African Writing Online Folio, an online-exclusive extension of our special issue, “African Writing: A Partial Cartography of Provocations,” guest edited by Chris Abani. You can read more from our Spring 2024 issue, available for purchase in print and digital forms here.
Jeremy Teddy Karn is a Liberian poet and an MFA candidate at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His chapbook, Miryam Magdalit, was selected for New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set (Nane) (2021) by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani. His poems have appeared in Lolwe, Poetry Wales, The Adroit Journal, The Penn Review, trampset, The Ilanot Review, and elsewhere.
