from “Mothersalt: A Lyric” by Mia Ayumi Malhotra

37 weeks, 1 day

If the body goes rogue, turns against itself. If between
breaths, all I hear is the crunch of body against brick. If I am
both body and brick. If I am broken and not remade. If this
breath, stoppered in my throat, is a room without release. If I
reach for the way out but do not find it. If you, too, are
straining, fist against face, knees against torso, struggling to
be free.

§

38 weeks, 6 days

I wake with a bullet between my teeth, grinning. The moon
hangs in my hair like a flash of light. I am the body fantastic,
dripping with silver and night sweats. A brilliant orb in the
sky. Come near, I dare you, I am swollen with the bounty of
fall. I crackle, I charge. My hair rises from the roots, a shower
of sparks, gathered and scattered. Muscles lit with new fire, I
throw my big-bellied challenge to the sky.

Mia Ayumi Malhotra is the author of Isako Isako (Alice James Books, forthcoming 2019), winner of the 2017 Alice James Award. She received her MFA from the University of Washington and is a Kundiman and VONA/Voices Fellow. Her poems have appeared in Greensboro Review, Drunken Boat, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.