Voyage
Originally posted January 29, 2024 and again in March 2024! The very first poem posted on this newsletter. Revised it a bit by playing around with the enjambments. Original lines were too long.
Crawl to any antiseptic sprayed hospital nursery. Ask every doctor who’s smacked a newborn’s ass what did they see—mayor, gas store cashier or naught—from your unsalted balled up figure— bottom red and flooding eyes. Scurry back to the home you comfortably laid your head. Request either parent that loves you less enough not to lie: what goals and aspirations of a purse bottomless with coin amount to beyond pipe dreams and a homeless man sleeping on a vent for the winter. Hobble to each foundation you received any education from. Inquire the teacher who you mutually hated and made rethink their career how different are you from the person that sat in the class— always in the back— and the romanticized self-indulgent fantasy you wrote of within the ‘I see myself…’ essay. Slither to any cemetery that’s overgrown with poison ivy devoured tombs. Interrogate the undertaker in the backroom— not the front desk but only for a dime— what far off future do they see behind your decades worn wrinkled and bagged eyes and they’ll point you outside, past the gate, underneath the dirt to a space between graves.