Jess Thayil
Jess Thayil’s work has been shortlisted for poetry awards by Live Canon Poetry and Wasafiri Magazine. Her/Their poems have appeared in Westerly, The McNeese Review, Abstract, Whale Road Review, Potomac Review, Magma Poetry, Ink Sweat & Tears, Poetry Wales, The Poetry Ireland Review, Banshee, The Tangerine Magazine, and The Stinging Fly, with more forthcoming elsewhere. She/They are of South Indian origins.
ENDSONG
Of all the ways a man can wound you
he may choose the worst // when some colors
betray themselves early, your eyes may choose
not to see: what happens to the child happens
to the child-woman and woman // before the man
there was the mother: be the bird that’s taken
to the child-woman and woman // before the man
there was the mother: be the bird that’s taken
one too many blows to the body. Be that
body again // again, again & you may wish
you’d thought of it first – the worst; but we
body again // again, again & you may wish
you’d thought of it first – the worst; but we
find ways to salvage pulled feathers & torn
nails: small as I am – smaller than the man and
smaller than the mother – bent on courting disaster
nails: small as I am – smaller than the man and
smaller than the mother – bent on courting disaster
I’d fly back into old injuries // be that swallow
crashing head-first again, again into the worst –
count each memory of bruising. I rode cold rage
count each memory of bruising. I rode cold rage
stretching its howl inside my bones & feet.
Become the howl to learn how // some fires
eat up every inch of us. So what
if it takes being utterly spent to return to mercy? And music –
to be the song about all those dark times,
be the bird // in the dark times, singing to herself
oh body, dear to the sun, oh spirit, queen of stars
understand now, there’s the worst thing & then the worst
