Mia Ayumi Malhotra
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[I irk]
from “Daughters of Sarkhan”
I irk hear ye! O dead
itch the ear
I’m here unearth me!
oh ye scree
behold me dead
I near be wary quarry
[I Will Out This Family]
from “Daughters of Sarkhan”
America, America. You head
homeward, but I follow, foul
and dripping. I will out you,
Father. Fraud! How I maraud.
Under the centipede moon
I rise, eaten from the inside.
A militia of light. The ground
ruptures beneath my feet.
I writhe. I am terrible with
newfound beauty. This form
I’ve found bristles with legs,
this land is filthy with them.
See my face, how it festers
in the night sky. I am familiar
to your ways. Fraud!
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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. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two daughters.