Palette Poetry

after Safia Elhillo’s Reconstituted Histories

From God, they told me – four years
of pleading. Tio Miguel’s herbal remedies.

Tio Eugenio’s tragitos de mamajuana. The entirety
of Tia Victoria’s cloister praying to my mother’s viscera.

And now Endeavor’s reentry trails are the path
to my descent. Mae Jemison, channeling Uhura,

“H...

Meg says she wants to know where my edges are.
The gravity between people. The unknown yellow flower.

The desire to keep responding: She asks what I like
about language. I say: That it tries what it can’t

accomplish. The possibly imaginary stars.
Burnt leaves flying up. Invisible heat and how it lifts.

And there is nothing to complete, so much...

Where are you when I need you
to cast a glance on my ovaries?
Let me tell you a joke:
They call it the Ideas Portal,
as if the child is just an idea
or maybe your only ideas are children.
Anyway,
when I log into the fertility platform
to read the PDF describing frozen oocytes and embryos,
I think, how industrial:
consu...

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