by Jael Montellano
after Alina Stefanescu
Imagine if you’d been Ukranian. Vasily’s cherished
ice-water eyes. I had
European men who loved me for my curves, my
round and heavy breasts. I nursed
you, you imbibed everything, then nothing from me.
You didn’t want to eat
first, last. Clung like a semicolon, a cat on the sill.
The faltering curtains drenched in light when you saw your father.
Dark moon child, mirror-glass of him.
The cosmos in your eyes frightened me.
The cosmos in your eyes frightened me.
Dark moon child, mirror-glass of him.
The faltering curtains drenched in light when you saw your father
first, last. A cat like a semicolon clung on the sill.
You didn’t want to eat.
You, you imbibed everything, then nothing from my
round and heavy breasts. I nursed
European men, who loved me for my curves, my
ice-water eyes. I had
imagined you’d be Ukranian. Vasily’s. Cherished.
::
Jael Montellano (she/they) is a Mexican-born writer, poet, and editor. Her work exploring otherness features or is upcoming in Poet Lore, La Piccioletta Barca, ANMLY Lit, Tint Journal, Beyond Queer Words, Fauxmoir, The Selkie, the Columbia Journal, and more. Her nonfiction essay “The Sea, the Shell & the Pearl” was nominated for 2025 Best of the Net. She is the interviews editor at Hypertext Magazine, practices a variety of visual arts, and is currently learning Mandarin.
Image: Jan Kopřiva
ID: Blue ice.
Psaltery & Lyre 