Kayleb Rae Candrilli
Kayleb Rae Candrilli (?-present) received their BA in English and MA in Creative Writing from Penn State University, their MFA and MLIS from the University of Alabama. Candrilli is the author of What Runs Over. They have served as the nonfiction editor of the Black Warrior Review, a feature editor of NANO Fiction, and the assistant poetry editor for Boaat Press. Source
ONE GEOGRAPHY OF BELONGING
After Ocean Vuong
What becomes of the girl
no longer a girl? Dearest Mother,
the stretch marks from my once-breasts
have migrated
to their new tectonic flats.
But you can always find hints
of what used to be. Trust me,
it is more beautiful
this way, to look closely
at my body and name it things like:
Pangaea & history & so, so warm.
Look at me now
and see how blood
faithfully takes the shape
of its body,
never asking
too many questions.
Dearest Mother, how many rivers
did I run across your belly?
Published:
2018
Length:
Shorty
Literary Movements:
Contemporary
Anthology Years:
2023
Themes:
Family
Identity
LGBTQ+ Experience
Literary Devices:
After Poems
A poem where the form, theme, subject, style, or line(s) is inspired by the work another poet.
Apostrophe
an exclamatory passage in a speech or poem addressed to a person (typically one who is dead or absent) or thing (typically one that is personified)
Rhetorical Question
a question asked for effect, not necessarily to be answered