Prologue to a Stutter
his first language is himself
the translation is running
to catch up
what you hear
is the running
*
so near
his mouth—
a tiny moth
lands on his cheek (the boy)
(he’s four) before I can even mention it
my pause
at the sight that may become a panic
spins itself off onto the door the lock
disappears into the keyhole
Forward, Thinking
I am counting on the silence of my debtors,
as an architectural element of belief
framing the errands of my day.
Lifting the window in the borrowed room,
I am inadvertently turning a red admiral into my prey.
I am flying back and forth
a collection of mobilities
entering countries with unearned grace.
Though at times I am not there to add my body to its autonomy.
Where I am habitually resident, my body can walk itself home alone at night.
Where I am no longer resident but exist as a vague form of post, a number on a single-unit dwelling, a phantom limb
feels its loss of rights.
Between two airplane windows, a representative
of water makes a nervous trail
over Greenland which, consequently, is not the brailled white
of the globes I believed.
The neighbors are creaking
where we are attached, our attachment
could also be the wind.
I don’t know their names but they are masterful at not looking
in the direction of our screams,
return the balls that go over the fence.
Or is it the wind?
The wind that, given a name,
empties the shops of all their bread.
I was confident with a sharp edge held firmly in my hands until they arrived with fire and a total lack of hesitancy.
I am counting on this dream being merely an echo
of weather-related events
just as I am counting on a short visit from the neighbor
kids who will touch everything in the house and then leave.
I am withholding water, as directed by the water authority.
More assertions begin “I feel” that at any other point in history.
I feel like I saw an aerial photo of the imprints of Neolithic monuments, previously unknown,
revealed by unprecedented drought. But that’s just me.
I have seen the recruitment, counted its young souls, filing out from school too early.
It is in the category of arrivals, a sort of fume just outside the window,
but it smells like candy so the children are pleased.
I’ll find out years from now if I should have worried.
Click here to read Kerri Sonnenberg on the origin of the poems.
Image: “Keyhole Face 2” by leketoys, licensed under CC 2.0.
- Two Poems: Prologue to a Stutter and Forward, Thinking - August 27, 2020