(After origin myths by Nina Mingya Powles)
What is your name as written on your passport?
(My name leaves my body and sits on top of a cloud)
Where are you from?
(I stand where the roots sip salt)
What is your ethnicity?
(A restless chorus of flags flutter above the trunks)
On your maternal or paternal side?
(I am half-water, half-earth)
Where were you born?
(In a dead city with nothing but cathedrals)
Where was your passport issued?
(There, where a pregnant sea gives birth to crabs)
What is your permanent address?
(An angel ushers me into a swamp)
What is your mother tongue?
(The scarred barks perform an exorcism)
What is your hair texture?
(I sew the underwater daycare with needles)
What does this country mean to you?
(I prick my finger and create a dye with my blood)
Is this your home?
(I make a hole on the
Earth’s surface)
(I am from clay and to clay
I will return)
*Photo by Blue Hound on Unsplash