Rain Wright
Cords of Blood
Maybe my
tongue becomes
an umbilical
that births love
for this body
and this body
sings in 8th notes
to old wounds
and new anger
this body, this body
my body, that knew the
the taste and pleasure
and languages of
desires
and the browned edges of
banana leaves in Hōnaunau
and the jade plants my mother
planted in the yard –
and the feel of sharp
‘āʻā on the underside
of my feet and a
bloodied rope of
tissue and nutrients
of languages between
us as fluids and I am
fluids and I am angry and
I am the blood of the umbilica
thick with dirt
this body
– we should
have buried them, our afterbirths
in that dark earth of the Mauna Loa
as an offering –
I am eight tentacles
of umbilical breaking
everything
Rain Wright received her Ph.D. in English with a focus on creative writing, life writing, and critical ethnic studies theory from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. She currently teaches at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, the University of Hawaiʻi West Oʻahu, and Leeward Community College. Rain enjoys teaching creative writing (both creative nonfiction and fiction), culture & literature, literature & history, and Indigenous and Afrofuturisms – as well as many other courses. Rain’s creative work has appeared in Hawai’i Review, Mud Season Review, Connotations Press: An Online Artifact, Madras Magazine, Summit Magazine, Hawai’i Pacific Review, Entropy Magazine, Dreamers, The Pinch Journal, After Happy Hour Journal, Arc Journal, Minerva Rising, Rising Phoenix Review, and Fugue Journal. She is the author of The Language of Mothers (2025), from Running Wild Press. Rain is the Prose Editor for Antipodes Journal and a board member and editor for Ho’olana Publishing.
photo by staff