poetry roundup Each issue we feature pieces of prose and poetry from Asian women, nonbinary, and gender minority writers around the world. Here are this issue’s pieces!
“Visit from the Afterlife” by Joan Missiye You were sitting in the sun On the blue chair in my kitchen Sipping a cup of coffee That I told you was grown in the shade At the Ghanaian border. You found me as I hid myself away in the tall grass Fifty kilometers from the paved road. And thousands and thousands more between where you left us And where we left you. You were sitting in the sun On a bench outside a stone church, Where your youngest daughter In bridal white clutched her new husband’s hand Held in perfumed embraces A steady smile as the summer heat crawled its way beneath the tulle and the lace. I stood in the crowd and willed her to see you there But she held her tears inside longing for you. You were sitting in the sun When I thought I was the farthest away I will ever be. The sand in my eyes and in between my teeth. I held pieces of my broken heart in my hands And I threw them in the wind. You gathered them gently and brought them back to me. “Didn’t you know that I am in every piece?” My insignificant heart stopped breaking at the edge of the Sahara. In the vastness, I stood up and ran. Freedom in the light that I could never chase to its end. Maybe I never buried you at all.
58 | overachiever magazine
