Karen Grace Soans
To get lost in brain fog
many verses
slip past me
these postpartum days
like monsoon rain
that runs over broken lanes
down sidelined gutters
somewhere
down the street
the system breaks
old words burst through
city storm drains
filling up my brain
with forgotten rhymes
from a vanished time
but not this one
no
this one I caught
while I nursed and thought
of all the poems I’d lost.
To soak in rage
there is power
in nomenclature
matrescence
the terrifying ecstasy of birth
brain rewired
body rearranged
to accept
this gift from the ancestors
nebulous
clouds of time condense
the soul struggles
to occupy flesh and bones
scarring my insides
striped
thighs arms belly breasts
a fevered fury
dances through my broken body.
taste the fire
of my pigmented tongue
no pink gums
I wear my melanin proudly
under a warming sun.
no home ground advantage
immigrant
or just another woman.
lost in a rage dream
I wonder
if anger transfers
through ducts and milk
marbling the soft silk
of your infant skin.
must resist
this hopelessness
tomorrow
let me soak in rage
and matrescence.
To understand the song of angels
one day
the fog will clear
and I will speak
truth revealed
like blood
before pharaoh’s feet
till then
suckle on trauma
in my cloistered shell
recovering
breath by breath
like discarded sand
pearled into existence.
Karen is an Indian scientist and aspiring writer living in Germany. She has a PhD in cell biology and uses the instagram handle @doodlinscientist to share her digital art documenting the highs and lows of experiment and discovery. Her poems explore themes of childhood, anxiety, faith and most recently – motherhood. She received her first publication in Nightshade Lit Mag.