two cold hands picked me up,
packed ounces of cotton up the slit 
in my back, popped 
my plastic legs in place,
and left me there a moment undone, 
armless,
my new legs split open,
one pointed north, 
one pointed south

i was nimble as my maker’s hands
thumbing each eye into its rightful socket,
my gaze blank
as the ground above my 
twice-great grandmother’s grave.

they could make us anything,
i thought, as me and my sisters lay nose-down 
on the factory table,
searching for any shallow breath as
our makers twisted our necks straight,
flushed upon our vinyl half-smiles with paint,
grabbed our right arm from the line, then our left,
popped them in,
threw us back in the bin at their shift’s end.

we were all just black for a moment—

the stuffed animals of our chests 
still naked, heaving against each other in the bite 
of the factory night’s cold, keeping each other warm 
as we could there before tomorrow, 
where we’d be lined up shoulder-to-shoulder,
snooped and pricked in search of defect,
branded at the nape of our necks when they found none
(Pleasant Company)
all unaware of the name they’ll give us in the next room, 
the pink dress, 
the work boots, 
the bonnet, 
the gourd.

Published March 7th, 2021

kim mayo is a vocalist, composer, artist & poet from many places. She is the recipient of a full fellowship as the teaching assistant for the 2020-2021 sessions of In Surreal Life, facilitated by Shira Erlichman, & recently completed Catapult’s 12-Month Poetry Generator Workshop with Angel Nafis. There, she was supported in completing her first full-length collection of poems. She is currently living, writing, & making in Los Angeles, CA.

Anna Ostoya is an artist based in New York City. Born in Krakow, Poland, Ostoya earned a BFA from Parsons School of Art and Design in France, an MFA from Städelschule in Germany, and attended the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York. Her work has been exhibited all over the world, and is part of permanent collections in the Museum of Modern Art, the RISD Museum, the Polish Art Foundation, and Zachęta National Gallery. Ostoya’s most recent exhibition, Motions at Bortolami Gallery in New York City, can be viewed online.