[stanza][lineate]Bow and arrow clasped beneath the ribcage.[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate]Sex turned, pulverised passionfruit, inside out.[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate]Killed by swordsmanship. A wren[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate]Of a beached thing, flailing, always once[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate]Something else. We were once always[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate]Gods,[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate indent=7]Mythological creatures, imagined[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate]As future generation in a bowl[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate]Of cassava given to a toddler, mollified[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate]Only by prophecies come to bear,[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate]On stories collectively hung upon midnight.[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate]A soul in Shikandini’s shapeshifting body,[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate]Vapor, her lungs[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate indent=4]Dripping wax from shadows.[/lineate]
[stanza][lineate]~ Khairani Barokka[/lineate]
Poet’s note: Srikandi or Shikandini is a figure in Indian as well as Javanese mythologies, each with different retellings. My mother invariably calls me this as a compliment.
Khairani Barokka is a writer, poet and artist in London. She is author and illustrator of the poetry-art book ‘Indigenous Species’ (Tilted Axis Press, December 2016), co-editor with Ng Yi-Sheng of ‘HEAT: A Southeast Asian Urban Anthology’ (Buku Fixi Publishing, 2016), and co-editor, with Sandra Alland and Daniel Sluman, of Nine Arches Press’ UK anthology of D/deaf and disabled poets (forthcoming April 2017). In 2014, she was recognized by UNFPA as one of Indonesia’s ‘Inspirational Young Leaders Driving Social Change’. Her first full-length poetry collection, ‘Rope’, will be published by Nine Arches Press in September 2017.