Alana Baum: If You Daughter Hard Enough

Photo: Joanna C. Valente

If You Daughter Hard Enough

I.

Suddenly
Given the opportunity
I am a good daughter.

What was I before?

Cancer is
Among other things
An intervention.

I am
Among other things
A daughter.

Even when it feels like the whole of it.
Even after we shape shift.

II.

Of a womb that repeated itself with momentum
A string of yellow lights
The possibilities that cowshit
Gave this pansy  

A daughter
Programmed
To mother

But what if I just want to homophone the sun and get away with it?

I want to be worth
My wombweight
In a family of daughtermoms
But I am more like a moth
Caught up on illumination
Cocoonless and flying
In conditions unfit for its wings

III.

d a u g h t e r. 

d e a r   t h u g. 

d e a t h   r u g. 

a g e d   t h r u 

h u r t,   a g e d

g r e a t.   d u h.

h e  d u g  a r t.

d a u g h t e r 

d u g   h e a r t—

r e d   a u g h t,

h e a t   d r u g.

d a u g h t e r 

d u g  a t  h e r 

g u t   h e a r d 

r a g e   t h u d. 

t e a r ’ d.  u g h.

d e a t h   g r u 

d a u g h t e r.

d u h.   g r e a t

d a u g h t e r. 

r u t e d   h a g,

u  t h e  d r a g.

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Alana Baum is a queer poet from Los Angeles. She wrote her most accurate self-description at age 4: "Sometimes, when my friends want to play games with me, I want to be by myself and talk about what I am." Very little has changed. Every so often, Alana hangs out on the sidewalk writing poems for strangers via @softcorepoetics. Alana is in graduate school to become a sex therapist.