AUTOBIOGRAPHY Poem by Safiya Sinclair

When I was a child
I counted the looper moths
caught in the dusty mesh
of our window screens.

Fed them slowly into the hot mouth
of a kerosene lamp, then watched
them pop and blacken soundlessly,
but could not look away.

I had known what it was to be nothing.
Bore the shamed blood-letter of my sex
like a banishment; wore the bruisemark
of my father's hands to school in silence.

And here I am, still at the old window
dying of thirst, watching my girlself asleep
with the candle flame alive in my ear,
little sister yelling fire!