by Monica Machado
First prize winning poem in the 2020 Makewana’s Daughters Competition
by Monica Machado
I can write you a poem on six days
About how the Earth changed after you left On the seventh day
We need to rest from each other.
On the first day
I will write about how the sky feels vast now How I cannot steal the stars
How the moon does not remember my face
And how the wind feels like a stranger when it blows across my skin.
On the second day
I will write about how the bodies of water we swam in when we were lovers Drowned me when you left.
On the third day
I will write about how the bougainvilleas you loved Fell with me when you fell away from me
And how they bloomed in the aridity you created While I withered.
On the fourth day
I will write about how the sun is distant and shattered How that bright body resembled you then and now.
On the fifth day
I will write about how the bird’s melodies are not in sync with mine How I am forgetting the songs we sang
And how I listen for the sound of your voice in nature’s falsetto.
On the sixth day
I will write about how the Earth celebrated you with me How it did not mourn with me, but continued to be.
On the sixth day
I will write about how I must continue to be On the seventh day and the next.
