Be the Cry
Hawa Allan
When you have outgrown your
skin, and emerge raw, wrinkled,
your body an ending
of nerves, light, wind and rain
a stinging offense, your mouth
a’slack and waiting
like a baby bird’s beak—
that first sound, that gurgling rasp
through a new throat, will
be the cry that births
another world.
Hawa Allan writes cultural criticism, fiction and poetry. She is an essay editor at The Offing and her work has appeared, among other places, in The Baffler, the Chicago Tribune, Lapham's Quarterly and Tricycle magazine, where she is a contributing editor.