Sanjana Nair
Girl Before
for the witches
In this version, the sky has gone green.
Thunder serves as warning
of what might strike next.
Each word, an arrow.
Each phrase a naming of what you should be
but are not. Dumb girl, dumb, dumb,
dumb mute child, cut out your tongue—
be done with it already.
The fire, the match, the smell of sulfur
rising work, work, work
cut away sound, silence the scream
amputee, amputate, ampule of hope—
douse the air in the smell of what feeds it:
Dangerous oil of hair, nail of foundling,
limbs of a lover—
remove the shitty smell of sulfur.
Chop, girl, chop, chop.
Shame you will not eat what you bear,
for we all will,
without blinking, without a care—
oh, the hunger I feel in this desolate place—
we sing praise
of that which keeps you dumb,
and sulfur, sulfur, we rise,
we strike the matches:
Burn, girl, burn.
We will claim you.
We will forget your unmarked grave,
dumb girl,
for all that you cannot save
yourself
from us.
Sanjana Nair’s poems have appeared in Painted Bride Quarterly, Spoon River Poetry Review, Fence Magazine, JuxtaProse Literary Magazine, and The Equalizer, among other publications. “The Lady Apple,” her collaboration between poet and composer, was performed at Tribeca’s Flea Theater and featured on NPR’s Soundcheck. Nair lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter, and is a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY).
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