What You Must Know First About Me
I am first and foremost a girls’ girl and a poets’ poet.
A daughter to all mothers, including fathers.
A father to all friends, including mothers.
I do not believe in narrative events or receding horizons.
I believe in circles. The seven nights. The sacred veils.
The imperative to dress or address a wound.
I believe in the technology of whistling each other home
in the dark. And once I was a girl in the wilds of Chicago!
I climbed down into the belly of the bridge
as it parted its legs over the flowing river,
touched the swollen moon, and the ships went by—
this was its own form of joyride.
And I walked the Calumet Industrial District,
and pulled up the trains by their hairs.
Malvika Jolly is the winner of the 2025 Alice James Award for Visiting Hours of the World, forthcoming in 2027. Her poems appear in Columbia Journal, Four Way Review, Poet Lore, and others, and performed on a diverse range of stages including The Asian American Writers’ Workshop, The Guggenheim, and elsewhere.