Cousins

Photo: Jordan Whitt

Read by the author

We wear fishnet.

We do not have the medicine to breathe.

We own the land now and we want profit.

We whisper to our lovers on the phone, under the blankets.

We take selfies in fields of purple sunflowers.

We question whether fractions can make us whole.

We ask our husbands to call us Yayeri when they think about how much they love us.

We become our parents’ dreams.

We must now find a way to be free.

We love this man with red hair and freckles.

We met him in Haifa, kissed him on the terrace beside the cypress tree.

We suck our teeth when we speak English.

We deposit to accounts hidden from the family.

We just say yes when our daughter asks if she is Aboriginal.

We escape with a man from the islands.

We are tired of eyes on our bodies.

We cut our hair to its roots.

We know each other through airmail envelopes, stamped in the profile of the Queen.

We do not play together as children.

We cover the bruises on our arms with sweaters and call the northern summer cold.

We cannot afford the ticket home to bury our mother.

All the men holding her casket are strangers.

About the author

Rohanna Ssanyu is a black, biracial, and diasporan writer born in Fairbanks to a mother from Kampala and father from southwest Missouri. Rohanna is the 1st prize winner of the 2023 Nutmeg Poetry Prize organized by the Connecticut Poetry Society. She lives and teaches in Connecticut, United States. Find Rohanna on Instagram.

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