Dictum
In this family nothing
goes abandoned:
we do not believe
in excess: that which
we do not want we hide
in rooms we can only enter
while squinting: look:
the cobwebbed basement:
tissue paper trees:
a cardboard fortress
for hand-me-downs & a girl with
spoons for hands who cannot stop
wanting: in this family
that which we inherit
we earn: we honor
by keeping: a good daughter
sharpens her memory:
a good daughter has
no reason for guilt: no
reason for hiding anywhere
outside of plain sight
Voicemail for My Mother (First Rehearsal)
Everything I do is in search of home and either
I am always returning or there was no beginning
at all. Either I was bled into this world or I was
apparitioned. [Say it again, but gentler.] I thought
you had grown angry with me but turns out
you were just lazy. I believe everything you say
over the phone. I have not seen a hospital ceiling
since the day I was born. In my dreams I am the last leg
of the dinner table, weakly built, quivering under a glass bowl
of rotting apples. I am either already perfected, or an upcoming
regret. [Say it again—quickly now.]
I click-clock my tongue into tomorrow.
I invent myself a new language and will answer
your call next time. If I am to go unseen
I want to be running. I stumble
and skid, I leave a path in the mud,
but no one will ever know
which way my eyes are looking
***
Author photo by Jaydee Lee
