Young Poets

Memoria

Pappy bundles me into

Coat scarf hat gloves winter boots

Mummy doesn’t like me wearing those

Pappy’s good lady friend got me them

All white and brown, I’m a plump Christmas pudding

Ready for eating

A steaming dumpling

An egg on legs!

Come on come on Pappy says

Waddling my way to the car

We’re going to see Nanny Cole

My pappy’s mum’s mother

She’s ancient

She’s a million years old

She’s a mummy without the wrapped around loo roll

And when she kisses you it stains your cheek

Zombie spit

Poison

We’re rolling along

A red wheewhaw whirring past

Pappy puts a middle finger up to another man driving his car

He shouts at me when I copy him

We arrive and Nanny Cole comes out

She’s alive she’s alive!

They both tell me to shush

I’m on the wooden chair

My bum is aaaaaaaching oweee

I’m kicking my heels against the legs, spiders are crawling up!

 Pappy garumphs and guffaws

Telling me to be quiet

And I am

Quiet as a mouse

Nibble nibble nibble

Nanny Cole doesn’t like mice

She’s got traps everywhere

She doesn’t want them in the house

All because she doesn’t want to feed them

Nanny Jackie said that we are Jewish

I don’t really know what that means

Funny hats big hats

Singing a lot in strange voices

Are we Jewish Nanny Cole? Are we?

And she says

What did she say what did that girl say I’m not Jewish

I’m not

I’m not

Pappy coos at her

She’s just a kid she doesn’t know what she’s talking about

He flaps at me with his other hand

Shoo shoo at me a pigeon

Off I dawdle

Into the garden

Everything’s dead now in winter.

Memoria pt. II

After Joe Brainard

I remember seizures alone in my bed at night, nobody watching to see if I could breathe

I remember children calling me names in the playground and speaking to me in pointed voices

I remember blessings in the church of our holy lord, our father, our giver and taker of life, those pews were so uncomfortable

I remember my grandmother pushing my grandfather down one night when he came home drunk again, she smashed a mug into his forehead

I remember the dog nipping at my fingers through a neighbour’s post box

I remember sunshine off the coast of France

I remember my stomach hurling as I rode in airplanes, cars, boats, trains

I remember the first red stains as I approached womanhood

I remember when my father told me about what happened in my mother’s family

I remember my paternal great-grandmother denying that she was Jewish.

I remember my maternal great-grandmother hiding her wrists under long sleeves

I remember the aunt who always strayed closed but never quite belonged. She was born in unfortunate circumstances, an unwanted child.

I remember learning my tribal name for the first time

I remember finding out what happened to Pocahontas’ son.

I remember my 23&me DNA tests containing bombshell revelations.

I remember overlooking a rainforest deep in the recesses of the Australian countryside

I remember my father cradling my head.

:this is not a poem it’s a warning label

— there is no title because titles are for books that finish —

the ceiling coughs again // someone’s frying onions downstairs / or burning memory — hard to tell these days

(i asked my mother when she stopped praying: she said when the gods started charging rent for miracles)

a phone rings in the other room. no one answers. we like it better that way. dial tone is a kind of lullaby.

[insert photo of a boy] caption: “he was always smiling” scroll like like forget

some girl on the train carves her name into the seat with a compass so the plastic remembers her longer than people do

&&& my friend says trauma’s a currency now everyone’s broke but showing off receipts

what do you call a country that loves statues more than breathing children?

this isn’t poetry it’s graffiti on the inside of your ribs written in coughs erased by hunger

(come closer)

there’s a final line here but it refuses to arrive.

[things i can’t put in my résumé]

— 2013: i learn silence is a second language. fluent by 15.

— afternoons smell like chalkdust + disappointment. my school says god made us equal. my lunchbox says otherwise.

— i google “how to disappear without dying.” clear search history. do it again.

once a boy called me “poet.” i haven’t written since. the compliment was too sharp.

my grandmother’s hands were maps but no one read them. she died with directions to somewhere we can’t afford to go.

[intermission: your mother’s voice, off-key, singing to the gas stove.]

i tried therapy once. she asked “what brings you here?” i said: “my legs.” we both laughed. then we never met again.

sometimes i hold my breath at traffic lights just to see if i still want it back.

— i’ve been the secret. — i’ve been the one told the secret. — i’ve never been the one safe enough to be honest.

a girl wrote “u up?” at 3:47 a.m. i replied: “no.” she said: “same.” we haven’t spoken since.

add to experience:

eating alone in public

crying in the shower but poetically

becoming someone else’s ‘almost’

references available on request. but they all moved cities.