He wakes with a veil of fading orange sunset falling over his face. Slowly, he raises a hand, twisting it through the shards of light. There are no callouses. No dry cracks of peeling skin. It is ... [+]
In the country of your birth, you learn to call redeemer, to call magician, to call the code HELP, in a tongue that your father was never fathered in. You learn fear is not enough to nurse submission. Your mother names you without consent, burns your father's tongue— before giving you the sort of strength August children are born with. How do you dream of a place you never remember? You have dreams that are surreal— dreams about grandparents who crossed the Sahara as Bedouins. Their black skins splintered into brown. Remember you are not the daughter your mother wished to have— Daughter