Naira Kuzmich: Beginning

Sometimes, I dream about my mother’s breasts.
In my dreams, my mother is naked
and nursing me
While she eats pomegranate seeds,
While she eats sunflower seeds.

Sometimes, I dream only of one breast.
In my dream, my mother only has one
and with it, she smothers me and my cries.
The pomegranate seeds like bloody cysts stain her chest.
The sunflower seeds like dried tears fall to her feet.



The poem was recently published in the Fall 2008 edition of
The Apple Valley Review.





COMIENZO


A veces sueño con los pechos de mi madre.
En mis sueños, mi madre está desnuda
y me acuna
mientras come semillas de granada,
mientras come semillas de girasol.
A veces sueño sólo con uno de sus pechos.
En mis sueños, mi madre sólo tiene uno
y con él me asfixia a mí y a mis gritos.
Las semillas de granada como sangrientos quistes manchan su pecho.
Las semillas de girasol como secas lágrimas caen a sus pies.


Naira Kuzmich was born in Armenia and raised in the Los Angeles enclave of Little Armenia. Her nonfiction has appeared in or is forthcoming from Ecotone, the Threepenny Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Cincinnati Review, the Massachusetts Review, Guernica, the Southern Review, Shenandoah, and elsewhere. Naira passed away from lung cancer in 2017, at the age of twenty-nine.