Anna Cabe: Diptych for Women of Color

diptych for women of color

for Abby, Anushka, and Sarah and after Lenore Chinn

i.                                                                                                         ii.

they say carry us                                                                             

they say you’re ugly

they say you’re beautiful

they say you’re too quiet

they say you’re too loud

they say clean this

they say cook this                                                                                            

they say buy this

they say your food/clothes/accent/eyes/hair/skin is funny              

they say where is it most authentic

they say stand up for yourself

they say why are you so angry

they say i didn’t recognize you—

they say i thought you were someone else—

they say go home

they say stop

they say you’re too too much—

they say and say and say and say and say—                                   we say no

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Anna Cabe is an MFA candidate in fiction at Indiana University and the nonfiction editor of Indiana Review. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Bitch, The Toast, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, SmokeLong Quarterly, Joyland, Cleaver, Expanded Horizons, Noble/Gas Qtrly, and Split Lip Magazine, among others. She was a 2015 Kore Press Short Fiction Award semifinalist, a finalist for Midwestern Gothic’s Summer 2016 Flash Fiction Series, and a finalist for the 2015 Boulevard Short Fiction Contest for Emerging Writers. You can find Anna at annacabe.com.