Isaiah Back-Gaal
Summer 2024 | Poetry
Letter to my mother from the near future
Ima this year the cornfields have grown upside down
husks of yellow beads head somewhere moist
dark & teeming with organic & mineral matter
this year the heat came back so good me?
I'd been regularly diving in the river for submarine love
& food so being gone & being forgetful
even now when memory urges the river's thick
current even now I forget left
the AC off the house melted literally
melted it wasn’t by heat but by
water the witch died Ima once you taught me
to love dry paper
the children’s library brick roads apologies
for splotches on the page kisses bubble
& burst down here Ima I was making a home
where I swam through gardens of sunken tire swings
the old world wobbles
like rain see? the chemistry of this atmosphere is compositionally
different from yours roots stipple the sky tall & latticed
as a crane I'm listening Ima the corn will not disclose its plans
Based in Columbus, Ohio, Isaiah Yonah Back-Gaal is a queer poet, climate justice organizer, and drag performer. They are currently an MFA candidate in creative writing at The Ohio State University and Managing Editor of The Journal. Their work can be found in or is forthcoming in Seventh Wave Magazine, Ghost City Review, and Copper Nickel and has received support from the Greater Columbus Arts Council. Their poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net.