Emily Lake Hansen
Pharaoh's Daughter Keeps a Diary
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Your brother emerged from my womb
with his tongue caught to the low
palette of his mouth. For months
when he cried, it hung there
below his bottom lip as if tethered
by string, a fish’s cheek snagged
on the hook. You arrived freer -
your mouth open wide as a bird’s
as I fed you bits of grape, spoonfuls
of oil to aid in digestion. You
crawled late, but talked early -
sung hymns, your tongue flirting
with each word in the song. At
four, your brother still struggles
to separate sounds - his th’s
and l’s and r’s muddled like stew
in his mouth. I picture you
sometimes kneeled in front of him,
your hands on his cheeks to guide
his lips to speaking. What words
I wish I could give you both?
I’d pick mother if I could,
a name for you both to call me,
a word tied in your brother’s tongue,
caught in your throat like a cold,
like a frog’s croak upon asking.
-
Your brother emerged from my womb
with his tongue caught to the low
palette of his mouth. For months
when he cried, it hung there
below his bottom lip as if tethered
by string, a fish’s cheek snagged
on the hook. You arrived freer -
your mouth open wide as a bird’s
as I fed you bits of grape, spoonfuls
of oil to aid in digestion. You
crawled late, but talked early -
sung hymns, your tongue flirting
with each word in the song. At
four, your brother still struggles
to separate sounds - his th’s
and l’s and r’s muddled like stew
in his mouth. I picture you
sometimes kneeled in front of him,
your hands on his cheeks to guide
his lips to speaking. What words
I wish I could give you both?
I’d pick mother if I could,
a name for you both to call me,
a word tied in your brother’s tongue,
caught in your throat like a cold,
like a frog’s croak upon asking.
-
Biography
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Emily Lake Hansen (she/her) is the author of Home and other Duty Stations (Kelsay Books 2020) and the chapbook The Way the Body Had to Travel (dancing girl press 2014). Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Atticus Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Rust + Moth, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and SWWIM among others. She is a PhD student at Georgia State University and serves as the poetry editor for Minerva Rising Press. For more information about her work, please visit www.emilylakehansen.com.
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