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Body Under Another’s Tradition

By Aliah Lavonne Tigh

Everyone in Anatomy pairs up,
receives a small baby pig.

                             The scalpel shines like water
                                  or a mirror—if you look, you see

                yourself: gloved hand pushing a blade to open
                         
                          the other animal’s chest. Someone drops

                a knife,  shouts,

                              Clean it up. This is how we learn to
                               dissect a body. Death or the emerging  
                              parts—discoveries we bag and hide
                in a drawer.   After class, 

                               I go to the rooftop. On so many
                            parking garages I’ve waited— seeing

                               treetops, oceans         in coral clouds—
                                   once ultimately alone, 

                                            isn’t it a miracle—the beauty
                                                our eyes can unhide. 

               With my hands,

I’ve educated and hurt

                 so many things,

                          and myself, survived.   

                                                     We animals hover
                                         over a stranger animal—and
                                               who interrupts

                                                          what wants to

touch us? Water licks the edges of bayous, bays,

            gulfs, then rivers—some with bluffs,

                             but in this town, only unbluffed
                                 shores. It rises in the streets,

            creeps closer to the door.  Outside—

                          water’s pouring out like opinion
                               everywhere

for as long as we’re alive. Neighbor,

             if you had no land,

           how long     could you swim before
                               you die?

 

 

 

Listen as Aliah Lavonne Tigh reads Body Under Another’s Tradition.
Added: Friday, September 20, 2024  /  Used with permission. This poem originally appeared in Aliah Lavonne Tigh's chapbook "Weren't We Natural Swimmers" (2022 Tram Editions).
Aliah Lavonne Tigh

Aliah Lavonne Tigh is an Iranian American author, facilitator, and teacher, and their work studies both infrastructures of power and ecological connection. The author of Weren’t We Natural Swimmers, a chapbook with Tram Editions, their poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day, Mizna, Guernica, The Texas Review, Matter Monthly, The Rupture, Gulf Coast, and others. Their writing has also been supported by the Tin House Summer Workshop, The Brooklyn Rail, and others. Tigh lives and works in Houston, Texas, and proudly teaches at Prairie View A&M University. For more information, visit Aliah's website.

Image Description: Aliah Lavonne Tigh, an Iranian American poet, faces forward with a soft smile that's working its way up to their eyes. They have long wavy brown hair and wear a dark teal crew neck top with circular gold earrings.

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