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  • Portrait of Memory With Shadow
  • Ife-Chudeni A. Oputa (bio)

We play ring around the boy—our shoulders crammed together,his back rigid against the brick.His mother takes morning patrolof the schoolyard, so we are careful to stretchour necks into a canopy of laughs and lean inuntil the boy must crouch. He is no one’s boy-friend, not even when we take turnsslipping into the ring’s center, so crampedwe have to straddle himin the damp grass, our chests flatagainst his. He learns obedience swiftly,parts his lips and lets us rummage.The boy’s spit tastes like any spit,but he is sweet when we let him be,his seven a little younger than ours.His silent a little softer than ours, butso much can be hidden behind the familiargiggle of girls—even a boy. If we laughlong enough? Yes, even we candisappear into our mouths. [End Page 319]

Ife-Chudeni A. Oputa

Ife-Chudeni A. Oputa is currently pursuing an MFA in poetry and an MA in African American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. She is a Cave Canem Fellow who has also attended the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in [PANK] online, Muzzle, and Kinfolks Quarterly. She is a native of Fresno, CA.

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