Mothertongue-Fatherthroat

Sara Jajou

Published to Substack

2024

In my final act of cruelty,

I cut off my mothertongue

and sever my fatherthroat

My grandmother is tearing at my hymen

banging on the ovaries

demanding I deliver her virgin daughter

to sit at her virgin table

with her virgin siblings

and her virgin parents

at the virgin banquet

The dentist is my cousin

prodding at my gums with a mouthful of rot

he’s whispering to the surgeon

The surgeon is my uncle

opening up my esophagus

and pulling out the tract

he’s gesturing to the butcher

The butcher is my father

He’s wrapping up the carnage

He’s packaging the flesh

He sanitised his hands

This ancestral toothache

will cost me a fortune