Philly Poetry Chapbook Review is pleased to present three original poems by Abraham Aondoana as our second biweekly featured poet of the Winter 2026 issue.
Poems
What the Body Remembers
My body carries histories
I never lived—
an archive of gestures,
fears,
and unfinished sentences
passed down
like heirloom wounds.
My mother flinched
at loud laughter.
Her mother hid coins
in the hem of her wrapper.
Her mother—
I never met—
but I know her in the way
my hands never rest
when the room is too quiet.
I used to think memory
was something you chose,
a door you opened.
But some doors
open inside you
without warning,
letting in shadows
with your own face.
I am learning
to step into the hallway
of these inherited ghosts,
not to banish them
but to ask:
What do you want me
to outgrow?
And each time, the answer:
Give your children
different silences.
Surviving a Country That is Also a Question
First—
wake up.
Not in the political sense.
In the literal one.
Some mornings,
that is already resistance.
When the news arrives
like a storm that doesn’t know
how to stop raining,
let yourself turn away.
Not out of apathy,
but preservation
carry the small truths:
your name,
the sound your mother used
to summon you,
the stories your father
mumbled when he thought
you were asleep.
They will be documents on the boundaries.
in every room that doubts
your belonging.
Refuse the lie
that the survival should be graceful.
Some days you will be mud;
other days, matchstick.
Both burn.
And when the world asks
what you are–
citizen, exile, stranger–
respond with your entire breathing:
I am here.
That is enough
for a beginning.
Theory of Forgiveness
I have been reading about forgiveness.
like a language—
one without verbs
for erasing.
Some people say
it is a door you walk through.
Others call it surrender.
But I think it is weather:
you survive it,
not control it.
There are days
I wake up certain
I have forgiven everything,
only to find, by noon,
that the old hurt
has grown a new branch
and is blooming again
in the ribs.
Maybe forgiveness
is not a destination
but permission—
to let grief loosen
its grip on the throat,
to let anger learn
a softer vocabulary,
to let the past
be a place
and not a prison.
I am not there yet.
But some mornings,
the air shifts—
a small mercy,
almost invisible—
and for a moment
I know what it feels like
to be unburdened.
Just long enough
to keep trying.
About “Surviving a Country That is Also a Question”
‘Surviving a Country That is Also a Question’ presents life within the frame of uncertainty in which nationhood, identity, and belonging are not definite responses, but unlimited questions. This poem folds up the concept of ‘Country’ not only as a geography, or politics, but as an inhabitable state which makes demands of the flesh: of persevering, of remembering, of adjusting. Shifting between common language and personal language, it explores how the process of survival might become a kind of translation, how such commonplace activities as speaking, waiting, loving, remembering might become politicized when the ground on which they rely is shaky. Instead of providing any solution to the issue, the poem is ready to be open to the ambiguity that can enable doubt, tenderness, and resilience to co-exist. By so doing, it points to survival not as victory, but as endurance: the ongoing incompleteness of surviving in a location that still demands to know who has the right to exist in its midst.
Author Bio
Abraham Aondoana is a writer, poet and novelist. He holds a law degree. He is a recipient of Idembeka Creative Writing Workshop 2026. His works has been published in Kalahari Review, Prosetrics Magazine, Rough Diamond Poetry, The Cat Poetry Anthology, IHTOV, The Literary Nest, Ink Sweat and Tears (UK), Rogue Agent, Ink in Thirds Magazine, Interwoven Anthology (Renard Press), Writing on the Wall, Alien Buddha, Blasphemous Journal, Rust Belt Review, Speculative Insights and elsewhere.
Contents
“Managing [my husband’s] pain became fraught in the last week of his life when he could no longer swallow the medications that had kept him comfortable…The poem explores the vulnerability and intimacy found in such a crisis.” Read five poems by Amy Riddell, our first biweekly poet of the Winter 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Reading the Body.”
Chapbook Poem: Aphasia by Robert Allen
“Ultimately this is a poem of love and recognition, of finding the right words for the right listener, to the one who listens and understands.” Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for January 2026, “Aphasia,” along with a few words from the poet.
Book Excerpt: The Egg of Anything by Paula Bohince
“The poem is filled with moments of ‘O’ sounds and ‘Ah’ sounds, mimicking the O of the egg and the Ah of the open jaw. I like that the poem is compact in its little form, also a bit egg-like.” Read the featured Excerpt Poem of the Month for January 2026, “The Egg of Anything” from A Violence by Paula Bohince, along with a few words from the poet.
Three Poems by Abraham Aondoana
“Instead of providing any solution to the issue, the poem is ready to be open to the ambiguity that can enable doubt, tenderness, and resilience to co-exist. By so doing, it points to survival not as victory, but as endurance…” Read three poems by Abraham Aondoana, our second biweekly poet of the Winter 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Surviving a Country That is Also a Question.”
Five Poems by Colleen S. Harris
“I am always struck by the juxtaposition of the biology and science of illness versus the life of the person living with it, and how those two spheres constantly interrupt and flow into each other.” Read five poems by Colleen S. Harris, our third biweekly poet of the Winter 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Inflammation As Girl.”
Chapbook Poem: Offering by Richard Jordan
“In my mind, the narrator recognizes that Harper’s fate could very well have been his own, and I hope that readers can relate, in the sense that we all have done reckless things, especially in our youth…” Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for February 2026, “Offering,” along with a few words from the poet.
Book Excerpt: Passage by Paul Hostovsky
“When she’d call me on the weekends, I was high half the time, impatient with her, and unforthcoming. It’s one of my greatest regrets. The tears well up just thinking about it. I didn’t grieve her properly. I’m grieving her now.” Read the featured Excerpt Poem of the Month for February 2026, “Passage” from Perfect Disappearances by Paul Hostovsky, along with a few words from the poet.
“The poem captures us both there in the dreaded check up appointment: me clenching crinkling paper, scared of what the lab reports say; him…lab reports in hand like some mysterious document…” Read three poems by Mary Whitlow, our fourth biweekly poet of the Winter 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Examined.”