Kimberly Ramos
Reflection, But Shuffled
When night slips into my bed and once again / the world is a place with no edges / I remember you are my first homeland / You, Missouri girl of cattle and birthing seasons / you of barn cats kept for utility but naming them anyways / you of early morning chores when the sky is nothing but a flush of purple dust in the pasture / You, the body that housed my body / our blood meeting like tributaries / we flowed into one another / My dreams were your dreams / : / dark, senseless, fitful / Your dreams were mine / : / knee-high grass buoyed with Queen Anne’s lace / dragonflies nose-diving at the pond / country fairs, cotton candy spooled larger than your head /
You, the white lady / ferrying around her Asian baby / us an oddity / a paradox housed in every pore/Peopleasked/:/Issheadopted/?/Peopleasked/:/Areyouthenanny/?/Asifyour body / could not bear a body like mine / a body of squid-ink hair, cavernous eyes, barely-there brows / Mama, we were dammed from each other / We were sent / to separate purgatories / forever thirsting / for water / for what was / the ocean of us /
Mama, when I count the teeth in a room / it is because I have to / Can you blame me for believing / everyone wants to eat me / ? / It was something I learned on my own / after too many close calls / Mama, there is more than one way I can be gutted / more than one position / men want me to sin in / and even now, I find it hard / to sin for myself / Mama, for all your warm fur / I was always going to be part feathergirl / flighty, prone to wandering / searching / migrating /
But Mama / you always leave the porchlight on / and like a lighthouse / you burn so I can find you / Mama, the older I get / the more people say I look like you / and I hope that’s true / our lumpy knees / homegrown hips / the thready stream of song / that escapes from our lips / and our loss for words / in the face of disaster / Mama, I know there are so many other things to be / besides being pretty / but thank you for saying / that I am / for loving what is you / and what is not you / and what came from the earth / and what is not of this earth at all
Mama, I am your reflection / but shuffled / with salt and sequins stirred in / O Mama, tell them / we came from each other first
Kimberly Ramos is a queer Filipina writer from Southern Missouri. They dream of becoming a cryptid and haunting the Midwest. For now, they enjoy watching rom coms with their mother. Their chapbook Alive, Today, Again! was recently named first runner-up of the 2022 Flume Press Chapbook Contest, to be published in 2023. You can read more of their work at https://kimramoswrites.carrd.co/