and the other day I remembered the word
for car, then brother, then small. I don’t know
what sentence begs me to be uttered.

I learn the alphabet and forget to read
from right to left. When I copy the letters from
the textbook into my notes, they reign orderless.

I begin with ز and end on م, bending my pen
into an angled flow it doesn’t know how to follow.
I transliterate in Russian and English, reach for whichever

language can crook my throat closest
to the sound of my grandparents, my بابا
—the easiest two syllables make me a child,

impatient, incapable of spelling a word all
on her own. Don’t intimidate me, patrilineage.
I recognize your sound, loud, gurgly, each exhale

crowded with tender force. Your arches and dips
will soon appear to my eye familiar. I shall welcome you
into my mouth a daughter.

Elina Katrin is a Syrian-Russian immigrant and the author of the poetry chapbook, If My House Has a Voice
(Newfound, 2023). Her writing was selected as a semi-finalist for The Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry and
has appeared in Electric Literature, Poetry Daily, So to Speak, Honey Literary, and elsewhere. She works and
organizes with Mizna as a Community Engagement Coordinator and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from
Hollins University. She currently lives in Los Angeles, CA with a dream and her cardigan.

Next Up: Poem with Lines from Emerson’s … by Danielle Kotrla