Three Women Eating Hummus in The Kitchen
My niece
reaches her tiny arm all the way up the tiled counter.
The paint on her fingernails goes far out of the lines,
dips thick soft pita bread into creamy chickpeas.
We are the place
this crazy lineage has landed,
small kitchen,
dirty linoleum.
All the generations of women in our hands
cradle the broken bread,
reach together towards
the container of hummus.
I watch my sister smile,
my niece dances while she eats,
she has a few small freckles around her nose
just like her mom.
I can feel the small fluorescently lit room
is full of legacy.
Trust Breath
I was exhaled from the deep sea,
raw from the tossing,
birthed from buoyancy
to gravitational pull.
My bioluminescent skin
flickered as I crawled to shore.
I was content hidden in the depths,
now the land
asks me to be more than a living organism,
asks me to name my lineage,
asks me to repress my light,
then later dissolve repression,
then find illumination again,
asks me to trust breath to happen.
© Jennifer Lothrigel
Jennifer Lothrigel is a poet and artist residing in the San Francisco Bay area. She has just published her first chapbook through Liquid Light Press, titled Pneuma. Her work has also been published in Arcturus, Deracine, Rag Queen Periodical, Poetry Quarterly, NILVX and elsewhere. Find her on instagram @PartingMists.
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