March 15, 2023
Slippery
Kiana McCrackin
I am learning to move my hips
in rhythms left for me by Danu
Danu the first mother, about whom we remember little
excepting her motherhood
when I die, a stone somewhere will mark me mother
and perhaps nothing more of me will remain
I step into frigid rivers
to raise bumps on my skin, to remember I exist at all
I call out to the clouds
shapeshifting above my head
a shrill plea that someone, anyone, will see me here
but it is the cries of my children
which turns stranger heads toward me
and not my dancing body leaving the running waters
undulating in directions it never dreamed of going
before, and fish scatter knowing I never
held them as an egg within my womb
but also knowing I am not the one
who would slit their bellies, spilling their
babies, eating caviar—
they don’t swim far; mothers' seen
___
KIANA McCRACKIN is a writer, a photographer (with a BFA from The Brooks Institute of Photography), a cloud gazer, and a mama. Kiana is eternally inspired by the emotions of the human experience and the landscapes she has called home; Alaska, California, and Washington. She currently resides in South Dakota where she is learning what the wind has to say and translating what the trees tell her.