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 8 July 20258 July 2025 · Fiction Off Jo Langdon Christa has gone off me, and it’s all I try not to think about—packing angles of chopped watermelon into tupperware, filling our drink bottles, walking with Lila towards the park. 3 July 20253 July 2025 · Fiction Harvard Estate is Aneeta Sundararaj Whispers of Ratna’s death on the morning of 8 December 1941 spreads throughout Harvard Estate. Policemen witnessing the lifting of her body out of the well are careful to side-step an agitated cobra in the undergrowth. Until her burial, Ratna’s eyes remain open, as though she’s looking at a ghost.
