THE DREAM
After Aracelis Girmay

Last night, all night
The dream, the dead
Battalion, four sisters
Lined up like mice, their
Biting teeth as blades.
(wailing) Marye turned
Pale as milk. TV lullabied
Fana to sleep, Nasret sucking
Strawberry flesh. I snuck
Orange juice until it dribbled
Down my chin; myself, bitter
And acrid sister. & saw the
Honeysuckles turn green in
Summer, neighbors moving
In and out. I was small and
Noncompliant. My furrowed
Teacher asked me this: Who
Wrote your dream-stories? & spun
Your fingers into lead, & cut your
Hair, bore you the leader?
My sister said it was other sister
Who wefted each dream. I said
I know & called to the rest of them
Like small guards, crawling. I spoke
To the bobbing heads and reveled in
Words they would never know. & yet they
Did, somehow. They grew larger
After all, & the sisters I call to tell
The dream will not remember anything,
& us outgrowing memory together.

NAMESONG

​I birth my name; abandon it
In search of my own.
Spit out the taste –
Bitter, and offer the good
To you, or anyone who wants it.
Let the feel of it lull in my arms
Sing a song of songs, desperate
Daughter of deadened sea.
Soon eyeing a new one
Fitting snugly at the waist
Not slipping or falling.
Misnomered name
That sticks to mottled skin
Like Rahel or Mai, sleekly.
Humming wiha, wawa,
How I first called for water.
Namesong that echoes
Dark as ashen tents. Like perfume
Poured out. Weeping
All exhausted and cow-eyed,
I collapsed it.

Leah Woldai is an undergraduate student at Emory University (23C) studying History and English/Creative Writing. She is currently Editor-in-Chief of Emory Blackstar* Magazine and a former writer for the Emory Wheel Editorial Board. In her free time, she enjoys writing short stories, painting, and learning new recipes.