“Millennial witch” by Antoinette Cheung
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Millennial witch” by Antoinette Cheung.
Millennial witch
By Antoinette Cheung
Do I wander the earth a hollow vessel
if I am not a mother?
If I had lived a few centuries before, perhaps
my body would already be ash,
burned at the stake for this heresy
of self-determination
my stubbornly empty womb a room
convulsing with the grumble of aunties over
โgirls these daysโ. The older ones
click their tongues murmuring
something about my hips, too narrow
for childbearing.
that must be whatโs wrong with her
In the Venn diagram between woman and
mother I float somewhere
off the page, a gash across the table
an act of vandalism
to our family tree obsessed with taxonomy
and neatly placing people into boxes.
But no matter how I contort myself
I donโt fit. I canโt fit
when Mother is as foreign an identity as if
I were to imagine myself a fish.
Copyright ยฉ Antoinette Cheung
Antoinette Cheung is privileged to live on the occupied lands of the xสทmษฮธkสทษyฬษm (Musqueam), Sแธตwxฬฑwรบ7mesh (Squamish) and sษlฬรญlwษtaสษฌ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, as an immigrant from Hong Kong. She is a poet of primarily haiku and related forms, whose work has been published in international haiku/senryu journals and anthologies. In 2024, she received first place in the Marlene Mountain Contest held by #FemkuMag. She is currently co-editor of the online senryu journal Prune Juice.
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