oriño ka-n-an manbo emalé

teach your daughters
to sing the song backwards
counterclockwise
wind in their mouths

teach them early
to breathe in the dust 
swirl it into their lungs

teach your children 
that the opposite of a secret
is a drink

teach them 
by example
to drink air

*

send your daughters
where the earth is soft

they’ll come back
and tell you life is hard

send your daughters
off the planet now

show them how
to do their dirt
in space

send your daughters
to the sky 
for clay

practiced as they are
at leaving earth

teach your daughters
that the only world they’ll have
will be the one they shape
by hand
and foot

*

train your daughters
how to dance in mud

cleanse them 
of the myth 
of solid ground

show them that
the mark they make
is evidence of body
not of word

is evidence of soil
and not of breath

teach your daughters
how to outrun death

Copyright © 2024 by Alexis Pauline Gumbs. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 22, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“oriño ka-n-an manbo emalé literally means ‘the road of the women who went to fetch clay’ the road of souls or the Milky Way. The story is that the women went to the sky to fetch the clay (with the help of a shaman under the direction of the chief) and left their footprints on the way back, but also never made it back. One version says the women were caught up in a storm. This poem came from my process of honoring my ancestors by relearning astronomy from an Indigenous Caribbean perspective. In the process, my entire understanding of what it means to be a daughter has changed.”
—Alexis Pauline Gumbs