"Refraction" by Solange Neema, with reading by poet
This poem is a section from the Epiphany’s Fall/Winter 2023, “Animalia” issue. To read more from the issue’s other excellent contributors, purchase your copy today in print or digital.
Born with so much blackness, I spent my life adjusting
puffy eyes to a new light, missing her darkness. I
am against borders but I need something to stop
my colors from bleeding out.
When the rain cuts the sky just so during wet
season, the broken light sneaks its way across the craters
on my mother’s face. Love decorates her and I with scars, like
infiltrating rays of sun, we are a refraction
journey. Light and vibrations blooming. A single soul punctuated
interrupted by earthly bodies, which of us needs to slow?
Solange Neema is writer and performer living with a dog and dreams in Brooklyn, NY.