Meggie Royer

Reincarnate

My mother dreams of Zarmina at night, the young Afghan girl
who set herself on fire to protest the love she was denied
and her beating
for writing couplets.
She stands over Zarmina’s grave, throws in seeds & salt,
watches her rise like a phoenix
from the pit, burqa wreathed in gold,
mouth opening to let in my mother’s ghost.
She gives herself up gladly to this girl.
Lets Zarmina feed on every bone and poem,
marrow and all, her sunken grey face
haloed by light like a funeral pyre,
the kind widows jump on after their husbands die.
When she wakes my mother returns to her empty bed,
tries to remember the scent of my father’s body
but comes away with only ash.

 

Meggie Royer is a writer and photographer from the Midwest who is currently majoring in Psychology at Macalester College. Her poems have previously appeared in Words Dance Magazine, The Harpoon Review, Melancholy Hyperbole, and more. She has won national medals for her poetry and a writing portfolio in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and was the Macalester Honorable Mention recipient of the 2015 Academy of American Poets Student Poetry Prize.