Literature, Poetry

My mother calls me Srikandi

Boundaries, by Zahra Asim. Image courtesy of the artist

Bow and arrow clasped beneath the ribcage.
Sex turned, pulverised passionfruit, inside out.
Killed by swordsmanship.      A wren
Of a beached thing, flailing, always once
Something else. We were once always
Gods,
Mythological creatures, imagined
As future generation in a bowl
Of cassava given to a toddler, mollified
Only by prophecies come to bear,
On stories collectively hung upon midnight.
A soul in Shikandini’s shapeshifting body,
Vapor, her lungs
Dripping wax from shadows.
~ Khairani Barokka

Poet’s note: Srikandi or Shikandini is a figure in Indian as well as Javanese mythologies, each with different retellings. My mother invariably calls me this as a compliment.

Khairani Barokka is a writer, poet and artist in London. She is author and illustrator of the poetry-art book ‘Indigenous Species’ (Tilted Axis Press, December 2016), co-editor with Ng Yi-Sheng of ‘HEAT: A Southeast Asian Urban Anthology’ (Buku Fixi Publishing, 2016), and co-editor, with Sandra Alland and Daniel Sluman, of Nine Arches Press’ UK anthology of D/deaf and disabled poets (forthcoming April 2017). In 2014, she was recognized by UNFPA as one of Indonesia’s ‘Inspirational Young Leaders Driving Social Change’. Her first full-length poetry collection, ‘Rope’, will be published by Nine Arches Press in September 2017.

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