after Claudia Rankine

my obsession with unforgetting
takes ink-shape.
I wake up and count them:

right wrist— pink poppy
right back triceps— red
left back forearm— María
inner left biceps— Mother

if they’re still there, then I’m still in the same body.
amaze me
days, feel my blood-inheritance.
I count them:

right wrist— pink
right back triceps—
left—
inner— Mother

this malady
makes a home of this body,
count:

pink wrist
red.
left hurricane
Mother?

Natalia A. Pagán currently resides in Corvallis, Oregon, but was born and raised in Puerto Rico, an island in the Caribbean. Oregon State University is her current academic home, where she’s a Poetry candidate in the MFA program. Her poems have been published in the online magazine, Revista Cruce, the creative journal from her undergraduate school, Tonguas, and in a forthcoming anthology, Boricua en la Luna: An Anthology of Puerto Rican Voices. Natalia is active on both Instagram (n.a.pagan) as well as on Twitter (@napaganserrano).