dyke (genealogy) / alt: a letter to my grandfather in this first year of silence by [sarah] Cavar

“dyke (genealogy) / alt: a letter to my grandfather in this first year of silence” was an honorable mention for the 2023 Priscila Uppal Memorial Award for Poetry.

you could say I’m in
despair: 

ex-child, ugly  / in the future’s 
grevious face. & somewhere

a younggirl secrets books from borders
reads untaught texts,  

learns the language of distraction, hunger, warp & weft
modest muzzle a firm fix  

to this poor round mouth;
shared nose, name, body 

seeking blade.
these days, I am learning

to delineate the erotic
from rhetoric.

I mean. grandfather. I love women

though I am not one.
I am the monster. out 

-grown my goodgirl
grammar.

you could not name me,
even in your latest passion;

you will die in an attempt
on my life.  

yes, faces can be tombs
for other faces.

“dyke (genealogy)” riffs on Sabrina Imbler’s 2020 book Dyke (Geology).

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[sarah] Cavar is an anti-genre writer, PhD candidate, and instructor of undergraduates on both coasts. Their debut novel, Failure to Comply, is forthcoming with featherproof books (2024). Cavar is editor-in-chief of manywor(l)ds.place, and has had work published in The Offing, Split Lip Magazine, Electric Lit, and elsewhere. More at their website, @cavar on BlueSky, and @cavarsarah on twitter.