Initial Transmission 12.92.09:36

By

after Safia Elhillo’s Reconstituted Histories

From God, they told me – four years
of pleading. Tio Miguel’s herbal remedies.

Tio Eugenio’s tragitos de mamajuana. The entirety
of Tia Victoria’s cloister praying to my mother’s viscera.

And now Endeavor’s reentry trails are the path
to my descent. Mae Jemison, channeling Uhura,

“Hailing frequencies open” a half hour down I-45;
extraterrestrial en route, ma’am.

Dr. Vaquero, Space City womb wrangler,
guiding me into orbit. The moon a waning crescent,

the earth a turquoise clock ticking into Capricorn,
landing scheduled for solstice Monday. And God said,

let this mother’s dangerously narrow hips
and the darkest day of the year birth

an alien. The scalpel carving a crescent,
a new moon, a lifetime of border crossing

made manifest, the surgical lamp
beaming me out.

Caesarian answer to Marian devotion.
Hailing frequencies open.

Ari Cottingham

Texas-born Afro-Latine poet, editor, and service industry worker Ari Cottingham’s work explores questions of belonging across multiple intersectionalities and political contexts, and has appeared in or is forthcoming from BOOTH, SAND Literature & Art, Exist Otherwise, Scaffold Lit, and others. Notable performances include Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, 48Hours Neukölln, the Alley Theatre, the Museum of Old & New Art (MONA), and the Sydney Opera House, where they won the title of Australian National Poetry Slam Champion in 2016. They are a 2025 Brooklyn Poets Fellowship recipient, and they are currently based in Berlin, where they have co-organized and hosted Berlin Spoken Word, one of the longest-running all-language open mics in the city, for five years.  

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