Blessed
hell/cop/tar
Dust Mirror Corridor
lock up your valuables the summerprogram will be using your room
I (did not) Choose This
January 1st
Saturn's Return
Almost ok mom
Coma / Nest
Carta del Perdón
Matribhasha
Hurt, Elated: A Bilingual Ars Poetica
Contrapuntal for the Young Women of East Oakland
I’m in my era of calm, she says skin gleaming deep almond and rose
the blue encircling her hair under the kitchen lights before the circle begins
streaming surrender I’m blessed, the talking piece a stone
rippling tranquility smoothed by mountain waters, and highly favored
on the cusp of her 18th birthday second anniversary of her brother’s murder
clear-eyed love for self third loss in as many years, blistering trauma-heart
choosing to forgive, to shed weights stacked heavy and deep
offloading at this shore cool against intruders trying to claim her body
peeling tendersoft fruit childboy-neighbor beating steady his pain
stories childcare pizza onto others across a floor of brokenness
shards of empty longing cling tough protect safeguard breaking open
shivering and held in flight
The helicopters have been circling overhead for twenty minutes, outside, inside my toddler screams inside my head rattling inside my abdomen aching, menstrual cramps, today it started, today a dozen police cars down the block. Folding laundry try to ignore the panic rising, inside, close the window in the bedroom but it doesn’t matter, old house, sound leak, it’s inescapable the whirring, the incessant chopping of air. The ceiling light makes me feel as though the walls are closing in so I shut it off, struggle through dimness to put clothes away. Move to the living room to ease my nerves, the bright cool turquoise paint the wall of books the protest art. Breathe. Remove my socks, feel the soles of my feet on the floor. Regain my center, the roots and tree trunk, filling my lungs, the floating organ, lush and free. Then the megaphone booms, outside, echoing, broadcasting the manhunt for a Latino male wearing a blue soccer jersey, describing every third person on the street here in Little Guatemala, stomach squeezed chest tight. Wanting to cover myself with blankets, breathe, again. Soon my husband will be home soon we will make lentil soup, his mother’s recipe, carrots, bright from the garden. Ash falls from the sky, sludge into resoluteness, grit and bear and overcome. Turn on the six o’clock news from the independent radio station, wait until he gets here, toys from carpet corner to shelf blocks and dolls in their cubbies shoes by the door. Busy these hands, fast, clean, clear, this space a sanctuary. Hearing news of student uprisings against the slaughter of Palestinians, that snipers pointed at protestors at Iowa University, flood with salt tears my face tired, this grief old, this dusty rage. . Tired, this grief, this dusty old rage. From Occupy to Ferguson to George Floyd, this coiling from the sky, this loud display of state power, fear stress adrenaline disquiet.
On the corner of 35th Avenue and East 16th Street in Oakland the borrachos hang off the steps, blurred tough with age and drink
Ysabel’s face shines on the mural where candles flicker and balloons float
Street shrine
An overdose
Probably fentanyl
An old man flattens metal under his boot, a faded green tshirt announcing “the future is bright” across his chest as children in white and blue uniforms walk with ribbons in their hair, spiderman and super kitties backpacks sidestepping trash and pavement bumps from the screams of tree roots underneath
Ghosts and dreams dance together a hollow wind a tunnel and
portal the maps have been written new
scratches and footfalls
lock up your valuables the summer program will be using your room
scene: threshold of a special education classroom in a public high
school in the first week of summer vacation. custodial staff can be heard down the hall, the scrape of metal desks as they prepare to wax the floors.
at rise: two teachers stand at the doorway in front of a large
garbage can. one throws books into it, stacking them to the brim, heavy, dust from the pages floating in the sun-stained air. not zealous, he is clear- headed and focused. the other winces each time she hears the thwack of another tome on top of the pile. she wrings her hands, sighs, and paces, pained by the task in front of them.
dont worry theyre not going into the trash
what are you talking about
its recycling makes me feel better about it
oh yeah they sort it at the facility
i didnt know that
thats not the problem this hurts this is wrong
its not that bad
yes it is you just dont get it
of course i get it im the english teacher
but in my culture
and i dont need them
books are sacred
i promise
you never put books on the floor
except for the williams audit
you apologize to the goddess if you drop a book or
accidentally brush your foot against one
nobody reads books anymore
this is a school
i know its crazy right
youre putting daggers in my chest
do you want to stop
no i have no other choice i need storage
i did this with the librarian last week
really how many
almost the whole collection
in the trash just dumped
recycling remember
instead of donating
its too much to coordinate and some are out of date
how is this real
we were helping her she needed help
what happens now with no books in the library
shes getting new ones
i thought you said nobody reads books
well its both and if i need any of the old ones she can get them for me
the thing is they symbolize knowledge
lets fill these boxes and put them on the cart
knowledge is from god
we can roll it up to the bins
so im disrespecting god do you understand
i love these books they are my heart okay
fahrenheit 911 catcher in the rye autobiography of
malcolm x
flowers for algernon persepolis shakespeare i know why the caged bird sings
this is impossible
just breathe
there is a web, my heart at one point
threading to yours and the small rubies
beating in their chests, our children their
vigorous fast brightness pumping life
into the dread pinched stress frown furrow
from surviving. somehow, strong, I know
I built the constellation entered
myself into it and when it works
we move as one. respond to “ma” or
“papi” interchangeably protect
nourish comfort. from your eyes I catch
the string pull it forward into nap
time bath time snack laughing discipline
measured or furious, clutching the
lonely thirst of thin nerves, together
face flat tired. sticky glue tempers run
short but the shape of this thing is full –
meshed wire a blanket encasing my
love, cool streams across rock-jumps
The new year tastes like juicing citrus with my small children
Drag grandma’s mystery box from Christmas to the kitchen
Hold their breaths Which color will it be? Wait for the slice of blood
Red, golden sun, or dusky pink
Squeeze with all their might to collect the bright nectar
Twist and splash This is pulp! Fluorescence on the floor
Slurp through threads in our teeth the tangy sweet sharp
Rising of hopes as orange crescents pile on the counter
she carves the lotus sutra on stone tablets, white
under sunwashed wind – her sisters look on from afar
their icy crowns at the top of the world, spinning
each ridge a dream from mangled road scraps of effort
the partial success and half smile, ice on forehead breathing
between sips of hot-tongue tea. later she will weep into her cha
milk salted quivers before she steadying herself, standing
from falling to collapse again, storm channels beneath skin
she feels the sea, knows its churning, steep brewed
cliff and the nectar that awaits.
at first it was a flash of red before my eyes
the blood dripping
the neck slashed
I buried the red, covered the flash beneath layers of soil
and survival
what it means to stay in this family
it crawled up, wormed its way from below until it burst
like another explosion
trampled tomato, pepper flakes in your lungs
the betrayal stuck to me or I held onto it
I don’t know which, the torment
if: I clutch this hurt: maintain the grudge
then: the pain: confusion: bitter stones in my chest
if: I resent her, Nelson Mandela teaches
then: I drink the poison: expect her to suffer
I want to love her, punishment is not love
if: I forgive
then: the surrender: acceptance: calm
quiet the churning ocean, drink the sweetest nectar
I trace the peaks of the Kanchenjunga with my finger
rising and falling each dip a step backwards each ascent a bright hope
I am walking this jagged edge
I will get there
For ten days a baby bird
remains in the nest
her mother has built
For ten days I remained in the coma
Its crisis burrowing me deeper within
the protective circle my mother had built
and held me in
for twenty-two years
It broke, as all perimeters do
The bird was me –
infant wind-boned creature
before flight
Twenty-two years collapsed
into ten days
in the coma nest
so I could bear
free the
weight
of the universe
Soaring
– for Nano, with a line by Hari Alluri
My students have fifteen minutes to write a letter of forgiveness, to put into practice their understanding of círculos de sanación. I will take these minutes and do the same, what I haven’t done in all these years. My co-teacher says: this is for you, an act of self-love. Get everything out. Describe what you need to heal. And then, forgive them.
You cared for me
I understand
Sweet playful passionate profound
Yo entiendo
Young love where the ground disappears the way you lift up from it
I know
When I was hurt you were shocked, traumatized
I hear this and your guilt, also
That it was the hardest thing you had done, to let me go
That when I came back I was still gone from within you
My mother scared you, hissing growling at your feet
I still cringe
Moving from fear and instinctual protection
The sting lasted longer than I knew possible:
a breath of gratitude, here
to touch the underside of a wound so human
I forgive you for drifting off and leaving
I release the pain of your abandonment, its sharp and bitter loss
I am unsnagging these threads of hurt –
Between petals of morning glory and strangle, cut away, cut away.
Pulling them out I roll them between my fingers, forming a ball
lilac and soft the wind carries it past by face and I gather the remaining
yarn string bits of being, loose underneath the sky. Pack them into
my shape, cords of strength, tight cylinder packages,
batteries and light bulbs.
Unburdened, alive: my spirit cleansed and free
on Mother Language Day 2025 after Mahmoud Darwish’s “I Come from There”
This place, etched delicately on my heart
So that it is its second side, an underside I forget
While I’m away. This place like the back of my hand
Against mud walls ten feet thick where ten generations
Of my people have lived encircling water buffalo
And rice silos. I have my own view faraway window
Green railings and ropes of banyan. Mine is the net
And freshwater fish. Mine is the midnight raag and cloud
Song, curves against teeth, nose of honey, soft.
I come from there. I render the earth unto her mother
When the red clay cracks for her mother.
And I crack to make myself known
To a returning underground stream.
I learned all the words from the colonizer’s tongue
Perfected this language of power to flatten and reshape
My mouth around the origin, ancestor, heart: Bhasha . . .
Hurt, Elated: A Bilingual Ars Poetica
Two-Tongued Kobitar Shilpo
In Bangla, “word” is
shobdo, শব্দ, which also
translates to “sound” or
“noise.”
Words are sounds, of course, and
strings – running after each other
A trail of crumbs light
posts in the dark wind in
spirit caves hope’s mirror
an airplane out of here
How else do we survive
unstoppable cruelties
chains at our necks
day after day?
Bearing this weight, toast
ullash! defy foreignness
this custom home
grown with cane sugar drink
clink-clink: উল্লাস linger
long your tongue around the double
“l” before releasing it to the sky
Ululate, intransitive verb:
to howl or wail with strong
emotion, typically
grief. Or: in celebration
before weddings
the women trilling
To emit a loud cry.
High-pitched ululul pierce
the air ecstatic
Synonyms: roar
growl bark bellow
clamor
From the Bangla, ullash, for which no
parallel exists in the English
language (not even close, don’t
bother trying): unbridled joy
From the Latin,
ulula: screech
owl
When Durga visits
at pujo kaal thrusting
against the roofs
of mouths
Birdsong night tremolo scan
the sky, neck nearly three
hundred degrees in rotation
delighting
in her arrival divine
on earth
All-seeing vigilance when
I was a meye my mom told
me she had eyes
in the back of her head
Maa Durga, eternal
mother
She could see everything, all
mothers can. Blame them
selves when the child is hurt –
Protection is love is the under
side of pain. The poet unearths
both, a brook
Stones over water
carrying us across
the treachery of this
world.
Living with a traumatic brain injury from community violence and grieving the loss of too many students to the same, Tatiana Chaterji writes to set free the cycles of healing we need for freedom. She is an emerging writer, mother of two small children, conflict worker, educator, restorative justice practitioner and theater-based healer based on Ohlone land in Oakland, CA. Her essays and poems are featured in Seventh Wave, Indianapolis Review, Rise Up Review, The Rush, Panorama, and Voicemail Poems. Learn more at www.tatianachaterji.com.
