Kaftan
My mother has taken me to Paddington Station.
We are inside a whale.
My father sleeps all day.
When he wakes the cloisters come for him.
My sister can sit on her hair. At night, a man sits on her bed.
Her bed is covered in oak leaves.
The sleeves of my mother’s kaftan trail in the dirt.
We keep forgetting it’s not her.
The telephone bursts from the wall. The wires are a joke.
We get it.
Notes:
This poem originally appeared in The Poetry Review. You can read the other poems in this exchange in the May 2017 issue.
Source: Poetry (May 2017)