Before I leave, erase this stain,
join the quintillion clouds in the sky,
I’ll thank my mother, who let me
live in Staten Island
‘til I was old enough to write,
to mismatch my clothes,
and who sent me off
to work the cog
and be a woman.
Before this wheel ends up a rock,
I can see how things will
happen before I begin.
Though my favorite color
is that of dust,
I must absolve myself before
I end up a beak-less balloon.
I paid a nickel at
the cinema today.
I whistle my pride
in this shack.
I’ll forget all these words
when I go,
but thirty percent of scholars
have already
forgotten how to read.
You celebrate your mother in this poem as well, I think. I wonder if you are speaking to certain freedoms and darkness that "work[ing] the cog" might importune?
ReplyDelete"A beak-less balloon." I gave a double take to that image.
Your last five lines make a fine mantra.