Daughter Ghazal by Nnenna Loveth
Daughters are best seen silent in the shade of their mother.
Daughterhood is a shared secret between the promises of mothers.
A lakes’ refracted image seen by the bend of light.
What is a daughter if not the sheen and sweat of a mother.
To be a daughter is to carry a tomb to yourself. In my iris
I’ve seen her see resurrection of silent dreams—deferred to be a mother.
Birth is also a loss—fat cells. clumps of hair. blood.
always blood at the beginning. Shearing self from oneself is the cost of being a mother.
Everything I wanted to be, you could be! My child face felt
so small looking up at the monument I was to become for my mother.
Good daughters never forget their mothers. Good daughters inherit their mother’s
knee pain. sciatica, back aches, sorrow and sacrifice it took to be a mother.
Good daughters, become grateful. Malleable. Display daughters. No-complaint
daughters. Happy to be the topaz polished on the pride of their mother.
Afterall I’m twice the age she was when my mother became a mother.
Don’t I owe half as much? Nne Nna, honoring the memory of a mother.
NNENNA LOVETH (they/she) is an Igbo lesbian poet, dancer, and facilitator who tells stories of liberated Black matrilineal futures. They are utilizing the relationship between dance and poetry to explore themes of Black sapphic intimacies, mother-daughter connections, Odinala, and healing from christian-colonial missions. Her work has been published with Game over Books, Button Poetry, Voicemail Poems, Beestung Magazine, etc.
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