Published in Overland Issue 227 Winter 2017 · Uncategorized On his portrayal of Coach Boone in Remember the Titans Saaro Umar After Hanif Abdurraqib ‘… memories don’t work the way we want them to. when i’m lifting my daughter to the clouds, facing the football coiling towards my nose, catching my reflection in a pane of glass – greeting all twelve of my bodies – i’m in several places at once. when they ask us to leave it all in the past i imagine empty cartons with tallied grievances hanging off our backs. grief swims in circles, catching in any bit of body that bares flesh. in every moment we live the afterlife, in every moment we die, smiling. you seeing me as your father is a lie, but i understand it. chewing his gum in a way that offends, reciting I Have a Dream over eggs – eyes fixed to a point made up in his head – his self talk is not mine. but once, it narrated my nightmares in which men just like me prostrated before God and died anyways.’ Read the rest of Overland 227 If you enjoyed this poem, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four outstanding issues for a year Saaro Umar Saaro Umar is an Oromo poet. Her work has appeared in Australian Poetry Journal, Cordite, Expound and Scum Mag, among others. More by Saaro Umar › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 22 November 202422 November 2024 · Fiction A map of underneath Madeleine Rebbechi They had been tangled together like kelp from the age of fourteen: sunburned, electric Meg and her sidekick Ruth the dreamer, up to all manner of sinister things. So said their parents; so their teachers reported when the two girls were found down at the estuary during a school excursion, whispering to something scaly wriggling in the reeds. 21 November 202421 November 2024 · Fiction Whack-a-mole Sheila Ngọc Phạm We sit in silence a few more moments as there is no need to talk further; it is the right place to end. There is more I want to know but we had revisited enough of the horror for one day. As I stood up to thank Bác Dzũng for sharing his story, I wished I could tell him how I finally understood that Father’s prophecy would never be fulfilled.
