Is Woken Up At 6am On Saturday Because I
“Left All Them Damn Dishes in The Sink”
it was one fork
what do you call a fork with one prong missing—
divorce
triangular dinner table
food meant for 4 served to 3
a fork: a way to dig simultaneous holes
my father: a fork
The Porch gossip:
she has more space in the bed
she throws herself into work
what do you call the space between the prongs of a fork?
she buys plastic
she talks to the tv
she moves into an apartment
she tries quinoa
she runs tofrom
more plastic platesforks space
when a plastic fork breaks
you throw it away
disposable—just like a man
I haven’t seen my mother’s face
in a while too much empty in the house
and everything is so heavy these days
including her head and her hands
what do you call the space a man leaves behind?
I clean red bean juice off the fork in the sink
—is it freedom?
The Poem in Which We All Go Back to
Where We Came From
& it’s a rapid unbirth. & we’re back in our mothers
who are back in their mothers back in theirs & who,
depending on what we believe, climb trees or are Eve. &
regardless, we’re naked & unlearn to hide & to shame
& unspeak our first words. & mine, I believe, was mama,
as would be my last before our tongues, if they
continued to exist, would drown in womb & water which
are both constants. if we ungrow, I feel,
the first to go would be speech & we would find
ourselves alone in the darkness of an unnamed place
we unknow & could never miss & could never explain why
it’s not where we’re from, it can’t be, it is un
recognizable & we, we’re back, but we’re not us,
are we,
someone’s speaking a language we used to know.
they’re not saying anything at all.
