Written by Ngwatilo Mawiyoo
Artwork “untitled (earthの日)” by eryn kimura
The summer issue of PRISM is here! Order it online, and while you’re waiting at the mailbox, read this online exclusive poem!
A crow glides past maple leaves. On earth
an open chested youth rides his bicycle,
empty bottles rattling in his basket,
a maroon garment bag in the carrier. Sirens wail
while we lay on the blanket, our eyes shut, deaf
to the ants and earthworms we trample (we trust
they’ll outlive us). And children are hitting a tennis ball
back and forth while this man teaches me to focus
on the breath entering and leaving me.
He’s asking me to accept the sounds without judgment,
in their nakedness. I start to hear
how wind shapes the bodies of things: skytrain,
truck on Clark Drive, the tree,
tiny hurricanes of a bee in flight.
Ngwatilo Mawiyoo’s poems have appeared in Poetry is Dead, Transition, and Obsidian, among other journals, and are forthcoming in Wasafiri and Pigeonholes. The author of two chapbooks–Dagoretti Corner and Blue Mothertongue–she received her MFA from the University of British Columbia. Twice shortlisted for the Brunel International African Poetry Prize, Ngwatilo recently completed “Joy’s Garden”, her first short film as writer/director.
eryn kimura is a multimedia artist based in san francisco. working in collage, she composes cacophonous yet fractal visual symphonies, using fragments from print media and found ephemera. scrutinizing mechanisms of hegemony in visual culture and memory, eryn employs the process of collage as alchemy, reimagining and archiving ancestral pasts and futures.