Listen to What I Am Saying, Not What I Say
Try to fold your memories as if you were handling
your mother’s underwear
or as if the memories were the creases
in her face, your face.
Look at your destiny. It's over
there, the pink dress
pedaling the tricycle—a spirit
on wheels, doing a religious wheelie
like all the other false gods who
haunt your pungent suburb.
If you are sleeping, where is
your necklace of drool?
If you are awake, why does your headache
keep sticking its tongue on the frozen pole?
If anyone is a fan of the way the past
twists its tendrils around all the knobs,
let her be the first to throw our
hosiery over the glass wall.
How long can you hold on to
a mummified cat
when the building is
already burning?
Sometimes I just want to use
my own hands.
Copyright Credit: Joanna Fuhrman, "Listen to What I Am Saying, Not What I Say" from To A New Era. Copyright © 2021 by Joanna Fuhrman. Reprinted by permission of Hanging Loose Press.
Source: 2021