Post Canvas #16 by David Goodrum
**CW: sexual violence
ancestry work//excavations by Claire Pinkston
like any good daughter,
I kneel to ancestry, smoke the doubt
from my lungs, salt the earth
in remembrance. I reap
a spoiled aftermath,
which is to say I water
the wound to keep its shine.
at night, I lose myself
to ritual: burn thyme
into my eyelids, press cloves
into all my softest places.
light candles until I lose
even my own shadow.
wade the dead through
waters they remember too well.
all this to keep and be kept.
darkness sucks the marrow
from my ancestors’ bones.
rape emerges hushed in old
portraits, and I do not know
whose face I wear.
like my mother before me,
I plant rows of milk teeth,
coax the dead to new names.
secretly, I dream myself borderless,
bigger than any country.
I hope I will be forgiven.
I kneel to ancestry, smoke the doubt
from my lungs, salt the earth
in remembrance. I reap
a spoiled aftermath,
which is to say I water
the wound to keep its shine.
at night, I lose myself
to ritual: burn thyme
into my eyelids, press cloves
into all my softest places.
light candles until I lose
even my own shadow.
wade the dead through
waters they remember too well.
all this to keep and be kept.
darkness sucks the marrow
from my ancestors’ bones.
rape emerges hushed in old
portraits, and I do not know
whose face I wear.
like my mother before me,
I plant rows of milk teeth,
coax the dead to new names.
secretly, I dream myself borderless,
bigger than any country.
I hope I will be forgiven.
Claire Pinkston is a seventeen-year-old biracial Black poet and writer from the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work has previously been recognized at the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and is forthcoming in Lumiere Review, the B’K, and The Hellebore, among others. She is growing with her poetry. Find her on Twitter @clairespoet!
David Goodrum (Corvallis, Oregon) has had photography published in various art/literature journals and juried into many art festivals. He hopes to create a visual field that transports you away from daily events and into a place that delights in an intimate view of the world. See additional work at www.davidgoodrum.com.
