Do you, too, wince
when they whisper
exotic in hushed breath,
fingers pointed
in your direction,
your inanimate body
poised to pummel
behind the smudged glass?
Has anyone ever asked you
how it feels to be slit
and stuffed from the crown
of head to the tip of tail,
what was once majestic
now hanging from the wall
like an ornament
adorning the molding?
What a parody, these people,
in their tiger-striped t-shirts
and leopard-spotted lingerie,
how they burlesque your glory
into patters and plush. How they
slash your tusks for piano keys
and other trifles before tattooing
your effigy on their biceps.
I, too, know the taste of this flavor
of humiliation. Fingers pointed
in my direction,
cameras poised and clicked.
Imagine: a group of men,
their fingers swiping,
the blue of my face slithering
across the screen.
Your skin, my skin, two notches
on power’s endless bedpost.
Exotic, they say,
while slicing off our ears.
While scooping out our eyes.

This poem first appeared in the Imaginary South issue (vol. 26, no. 4: Winter 2020).

Tiana Nobile is a Korean American adoptee, Kundiman fellow, and recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. A finalist for the National Poetry Series and Kundiman Poetry Prize, her writing has appeared in Poetry Northwest, the New Republic, Guernica, and the Texas Review, among others. Her full-length poetry debut, Cleave, is forthcoming in spring 2021 from Hub City Press. She lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. For more, visit www.tiananobile.com.