the early stirrings
By Atia Sattar
a fish slipping brushing gentle within bathing anew in everything I ate: masala dosa, nasi goreng and thai food spicy. dad couldn’t eat spicy at the end couldn’t eat at all. I taped the tube near his nose, trimmed the tape with tiny scissors, kept it from rubbing against his mouth untrespassed by food, articulated only in pain or anger or impatience but mostly staying shut. we never spoke of our shared germinations the bodies growing inside our bodies eating and eating and eating until each of us felt sick.
Atia Sattar is a Pakistani-born poet whose writing explores the embodied intersections of motherhood, grief, gender and race. Her poetry has appeared in West Trade Review, MQR: Mixtape; Rogue Agent (Pushcart Nomination) and Cathexis Northwest Press. Her prose can be found in various publications including Lion’s Roar, Tricycle, Academe, and the Cambridge Quarterly for Health Care Ethics. She is Associate Teaching Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Southern California.
04/10 / Poetry Reading and Conversation with visiting poet-in-residence Chloe Martinez and local poet Ximena Gómez / The BBar at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 7-8:30 pm EST / Free
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