The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Self-Talk by Esinam Bediako

This selection, chosen by Guest Editor Romy Ewing, is from Self-Talk by Esinam Bediako (Porkbelly Press 2025).

Content Warning: racism or racialized violence

Body/Mind Braid

One night, I couldn’t get close enough to the earth. Spinning,
I left my bed and pressed the length of my body to the rug,
the shell of my ear to the ground.

The cat roused from her own bed and sauntered in my
direction, only stopping when she stood so close that her fuzzy
black paws were all that I could see.

I had a sense I’d never had before, a sense I’ve never had since.
Vibration is one way to say it, flutter is another, but now I’m
just throwing words at something for which I have no words.
In my ear I heard a thrumming that I could feel in my bones,
my body a conduit for some unnamed thing.

The next morning, I woke from the living room floor, bursting
with knowledge. “I’m pregnant,” I told my husband, and his
eyes crinkled the way they do when he doesn’t believe me,
when he thinks I’m being unreasonable but doesn’t want to say
it. He asked how I knew, but I didn’t have the language. I
sputtered something about the middle of the night, dizziness,
a strange feeling. “Even the cat could tell,” I said, “and you
know animals have a sixth sense.” As if I’m not an animal
myself, as if I shouldn’t trust my own instincts.

Esinam Bediako (she/her) is a Ghanaian American writer from Detroit. She is the author of the Ann Petry Award-winning novel, Blood on the Brain (Red Hen Press, 2024), as well as the essay/poetry chapbook, Self-Talk (Porkbelly Press, 2025). You can find some of her recent work in Porter House Review, Cathexis Northwest Press, Great River Review, North American Review, and Southern Humanities Review. Esi lives in Claremont, CA with her family.

Romy Rhoads Ewing (she/her) writes from Sacramento, CA, where she was born and raised. Her work has appeared in HAD, Oyez Review, Rejection Letters, Bullshit Lit, Major 7th Magazine, and more. Her poetry chapbook please stay was published in 2024 by Bottlecap Press. Her hybrid zine, someday [everybody but] us will laugh about all of this, was briefly physically distributed at the 3rd Annual Hallow-Zine Fest and is available digitally. She also edits poetry and nonfiction for JAKE and runs the archival site SACRAMENTO DIRTBAG ARCHIVES. She can be found at romyrhoadsewing.xyz