After “A Poem for S.”
Because I have begun to imagine myself
Carried away by congee and Sunday morning
Domesticity. Surrounded by picket fencing and
Earnestness, I would wake to holy matrimony—
Faith in a vacuum to suck up the
Grief that wails out of the machine, even though
History says that I am left with the debris
Inside my twenty-one year-old self, here.
Just now, I did my laundry and folded to a staunch
Knowing what comes with patriarchy: certainty
Lasts in cobwebs and social security,
Marriage to save myself from fear of
Negligence. I am too exposed under the covers
Or scared of what I can’t hear in my sleep. I want
Pancakes to promise a fifth sense. Too bad I always
Queue the unheard: the fatal fire alarm over and over,
Ringing out as the flames forget me, here.
Sheepishly, I picture a “World’s Best Dad” apron
Tied to an idea of someone else as my ears, crisping
Urgency when danger is noiseless. In the dictionary,
Vulnerability is found in the latter half. I
Wonder if I could spell it out. It would start with a red
X over this entire poem. It would end in a Y for
Yes, there is a luscious garden without a picket fence,
Zinnias rooted with my own two hands.
