call Sarah
mom tells the lady in her Subaru radio to call me, but the lady doesn’t understand. i’m sorry, i didn’t
catch that. can you please repeat the name? mom says it again. clearer, louder, un-human speech. mouth
wet, wide open. i’m sorry, i didn’t catch that. can you please repeat the name? she has lived in the usa
since the nineties, spewing words in an accent incompatible with cyborgs. siri, alexa, google, the subaru
lady, all un-designed to handle mom’s mexican-japanese english inflection. i’m sorry, i didn’t catch that.
can you please repeat the name? she curses at the car in spanish. chinga tu madre! and turns the radio on,
blasting.
I used to believe in everything
the last time I crossed myself
I can’t remember
clink clink!
incense, swinging
a religious post-mortem
my baptism filled the church
and for what?
existence through canon
shimmering golden set pieces
the projection begins to blur
our father
whose father? mine? Oh
year five of
non-attendance, non-intention
my solemn disassociation
from a pseudo family
18 whole years?
perhaps this qualifies
as my formal confession
warm, Byzantine memento
a lost theological inheritance
Sarah Sophia Yanni is a half Egyptian / half Mexican writer in Los Angeles. She is an Editor at Sublevel Magazine and is currently pursuing an MFA from the CalArts School of Critical Studies. She is the author of the forthcoming chapbook ternura / tenderness (Bottlecap Press) and other poems and stories that can be found at www.sarahsophiayanni.com.