by Sophia Naz

(A poem series)


1

Do you sometimes feel that your life is a sequel
to a first act you can’t remember?
Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise?
I mean who wants the terror-imprint of an unfamiliar
fluorescence coupled with first breath and squeal and pull
of gravity despite cradling.

Night of amnion sea anemone
followed by night cribbing as emblem
of first separation


2

Consider how a sequin is a round wound
a moon with a hole in its heart
already prepped for the needle that pierces
and pins it to your absence.


3

Sequins seeking shelter from nightmares
nest in encampments of eyelids
Needle is to finger as knit is to skein
Sequin comes from *sikka, your Urdu purse coins
a glitter of language, sheds
a snake. Hangnails bleed
inconsolable.


4

Insomnia is your unchecked baggage
on the night flights home the cities
also half asleep, their coverlet of light
bulbs sprouting feverish impatience.


5

Tasks upon landing: memorize the taste
of a freshly rolled moon
swim through thousand-layered air
turn your pockets inside out, watch
America clatter to the ground
eons of small change
& cold nights melt
ice on a hot side - walk

walk


6

Humid night evades all metal detectors
smuggles her skin hue midst you
a sequence spilling
in all directions

home




*sikka: coin, the first sequins were coins stitched to fabric. This fashion traveled to Italy where it became zecchino, and from there to France where it became known as sequin
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Sophia Naz has authored the poetry collections Bark Archipelago (Weavers Press, San Francisco & Red River India), Open Zero (Yoda Press), Pointillism (Copper Coin), Date Palms (City Press), Peripheries (Cyberhex ), and a biography, Shehnaz (Penguin Random House.) Her work appears in The Academy of American Poets, Poetry Daily, The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Poets, The Night Heron Barks, Singing in the Dark, Berfrois, The Bombay Literary Magazine, Rattle, and The Adirondack Review, amontg others. See sophianaz.com.

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This week, SWWIM and Matwaala are coming together to celebrate women writers of South Asian heritage with a week of poetry and a SWWIM x Matwaala writing residency and reading at The Betsy-South Beach featuring visiting writer Nina Sudhakar and local writer Carolene Kurien. (The reading will take place on September 11 at 7:00 pm. Please join us in person or via Instagram Live or Facebook Live!)

Matwaala was launched in 2015 to increase the visibility of diasporic South Asian poets (from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Afghanistan) in the mainstream American literary landscape. The name Matwaala in a transferred sense suggests the intoxication of poetic creativity. Matwaala showcases the diversity within the South Asian community—and within the Indo-American community.

A note from Matwaala: Matwaala, the South Asian Diaspora Poetry Collective, is honored to join hands with SWWIM in celebrating a week of South Asian poetry that celebrates Matwaala’s tenth anniversary. A thoughtfully curated selection of women poets offer us a constellation of rich poetry this week. Together with SWWIM, we affirm poetry’s power to bridge distances, and amplify voices.