Emancipation

by M. Anne Kala`i

I.

Mother didn’t teach me how to garden.
She taught me to pack up a house
after the water turned off,
then the lights.
Well-labeled boxes swallowed
our things and spit out
new cities. I learned you can change
your heart and name
after a hand in marriage
and divorce, marriage
and divorce.
I can’t fix cars or build shelves
and I’ve never been able to save money,
but I run like her
and I always get away.

II.

There is no room for me
in father’s head, only his house
where there is no moon –
he can’t see his heart in my hand,
mine in his
spilling half his blood. We just hold on
squeezing harder,
running out, both human
after all.

M. Anne Kala`i works across genres to knit connective tissue between disparate places and communities. Her poetry has been published in the San Pedro River Review and her fiction was shortlisted for the 2024 Cheshire Novel Prize. Kala`i is an alumna of PEN America’s 2024 Emerging Voices Workshop LA and Vassar College’s creative writing program. She is a member of the Los Angeles chapter of Women Who Submit.