Reem Hazboun Taşyakam

[re]generation

PUBLISHED IN FOLIO 2025: VOL. 40.

I have not been born yet   or conceived   or conceived of
but I share my mother’s tale as the weight upon her precludes expression

Yanina. Poland. 1939. Daughter of a prisoner of war.

Huddles in a freight car   by a young mother    riding along   bump after bump
curve upon curve
too afraid to speak   to breathe nearly   the infant cries   the air, frigid   the
mother’s milk runs dry

She rocks   baby still   quiet   the metal door grinds open   flashlights in eyes
and when sight creeps back   they wish it hadn’t   the infant’s tiny mouth suckling
so real

Seems in motion but is still   a fossilized record of primal effort   etched into the
minds    of the survived
Corpse in burlap sack    mother screeching   begging   pleading   sobbing
collapsing

Yanina. Siberia. ’39 to ’45. Mother of a child of war.

Plucks potatoes from their root   never to have one    day and night   no rest
neglected   until
the watchful gaze of night guard   approaches   coaxes   forces   spreads her out on
potato shed hay
until ultimately    she is gifted   me

Reem Hazboun Taşyakan is a Literature PhD candidate at University of California, San Diego. She conducts research on the sociopolitical significance of 21st c. Arab American novels. She obtained her BA in Creative Writing and her MA in Near Eastern Studies from the University of Arizona, then worked as a lecturer of Arab literature and culture before beginning her doctoral studies. Reem’s fiction has appeared in Eclectica and Kweli, and is forthcoming in Third Coast. Her poetry has appeared in Other People, The Tiny Mag, and Grist.