If I wrote a poem to my future daughter it would say:
Carolina, I am sorry
this world is not for you
or anyone. Am I late or

have I been bleeding for weeks?
I stopped using that period tracker
when I found out they sold my data to health care companies.
Now my body comes to me in cramps

 wringing out a meager gratitude.
I’m counting my worries like I used to count love
on the arms of a daisy, like all the people who are not
counting on me, like whether my bell pepper seeds 

will ever sprout or whether it’s stones
in the planter on the sill. I open and close
my arms with each return
of the sun, and when the sky is dark

with the tang of heavy metals
I touch my belly. All I have 
is doubt, a thirsty stone.
Carolina, if I were a mother, 

I’d end this poem with power. I’d salt the earth.

Victoria Sepulveda is a poet from California’s Central Coast and she lives in the Bay Area. She received her MFA from St. Mary’s College of California. Her work has appeared in the Santa Ana River Review, Solo Novo and “Corners of the Mouth: A Celebration of Thirty Years at the Annual San Luis Obispo Poetry Festival.”

Portia Zvavahera is an artist born in Juru, and currently based in Harare, Zimbabwe. After studying at the BAT Visual Arts Studio, National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Zvavahera attended Harare Polytechnic for a diploma in visual arts. Solo exhibitions of her work have been held at Stevenson, Cape Town and Johannesburg (six times), the Marc Foxx Gallery in Los Angeles, the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, and the Institute of Contemporary Art Indian Ocean in Mauritius. Her work has also been shown in New York, Minnesota, Texas, Mexico, England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Russia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, among other places.
The recipient of numerous residencies and awards, Zvavahera was part of the Zimbabwe Pavilion exhibition at the 55th Venice Biennale. Zvavahera’s latest exhibit, Ndakavata pasi ndikamutswa nekuti anonditsigira, opens on September 15th at David Zwirner Gallery in London.