我旳

It’s getting cold and I just want କାଞ୍ଜି, 
but the place I grew up in is gone. 
I was named for annihilation, काली, 
from the Samskrtam for the blackness before creation. 
There is too much time in me, 
too much blood of the Mór-Rígghain, 
too much blood of the aureoled Nāga. 
The hunger of Apophis or Fenrir — 
I’ve eaten crocodile and lunar cakes, 
and I’m coming for the sun next, 
red as the silk road — 
kɑ:, I say, like Khan, and they flinch, 
my tongue the sword of Damocles, 
throat speckled like foxglove, 
eyes burning like Гоργώv ichor — 
don’t letch at me, you contemptable fuck.

BY KALI NORRIS, AKA SEKHMET

---

Poet's Statement 

I grew up in New York, and I was always surrounded by languages. Spanish, Cantonese, Sanskrit, Yiddish, Mandarin. This is an angrier poem than I've posted here before, but sometimes I don't want to translate myself. Sometimes I don't want to tell people what my name means. Sometimes I am angry. Of course, plenty of people have a much harder time with this, but it's all the same problem. People pretend they can't pronounce my name. Mostly, I'm polite about it.