the women in my family

Fatimah Asghar

their names have been lost
only the winds & only the mountains

keep them. we’ve forgotten the names
of the mountains, my people, the more

we bent our knees to worship the gods
of the city, the gods with jaguar eyes

who sit in the smog, which could be mistaken
for clouds but for the ink they leave

in our lungs, rorschach paintings doctors
dissect. what do you see? my death, certainly

but still no names of the women before
me, or the names of the mountains

& rivers, the promises my ancestors made
to the spirits & then betrayed when they fled

exchanged land for new land. what was her
name? i ask the room of my uncles &

am met with disinterest. where did she come
from? & I receive silence. that must be

it then: she came from air. from wind.
from the earth, stilling to quiet. & in

the right moment, when the sun hits
the water, when no one is around

when i can see the mountains breaking
the sky, i can almost hear them, the women

in my family, the ones who remember
their names.