To Reclaim
From twenty-six to over thirty-six,
from A and Bs to alifs and bays,
from leading left to leading right,
from English to Urdu,
I am reclaiming my mother tongue,
my birthright,
writing what I once could not read,
could not love.
From twenty-six to over thirty-six,
from A and Bs to alifs and bays,
from leading left to leading right,
from English to Urdu,
I am reclaiming my mother tongue,
my birthright,
writing what I once could not read,
could not love.
The mouse ran up the clock
As Humpty Dumpty fell
And the cow jumped over Mr. McGregor’s carrots.
Beneath the white-curtained window of my bedroom.
Charlotte spun a web
In the Secret Garden
And Ferdinand the Bull won the Grand National Steeplechase.
Around the pine table centered on my woven rag rug.
Margaret increased her bust
in Laura’s Little House
As the White Rabbit scurried past to whitewash a fence.
Across my pink-skirted canopy bed.
Sometimes
When I think about you
It feels like my legs get hot
I don’t know what that means
I’ve never felt that way
It’s like my legs fell asleep
While soaking in a hot tub
I don’t even know
If it’s a metaphor for anything
But I keep thinking about you
And I relish in the warmth
I pretend I do it
To pinpoint
What i feel
But the longer my feet burn,
The harder it is to bite back
A smirk
I grew up communing with
makers of antiques,
but not directly
My mother was a dealer
who showed me how antiques were
hand made, hewn, hammered and held together
She held my hand and ran it over surfaces
for knowing through touch and observation
How it might have felt to carve a design into wood
How a blacksmith’s hammer formed ironworks
How a pattern worked it’s way into a basket
I found myself approaching objects
almost like a parapsychologist,
a person thought to read objects
through clairvoyance to locate an owner,
but that did not happen with me.
Likely some form did with my mother,
as later in life she worked with police,
locating runaways through objects,
so I know she had a gift.
I never had that clarity of skill,
but I think I experienced something else
When I held objects —
I channelled the ghosts of the makers.
My mother directed me to read objects
and what I saw brought me somewhere else.
I saw value through the maker’s eyes,
I felt the objects as though I had made them
They taught me things
and something was ignited.
Now many of those
objects live with me.
It feels quite normal to live among ghosts.
I sometimes think
my mother’s antiquing quests
were a form of grave robbing.
She bought things from people’s
basements, attics and garages
— right out of their homes.
She collected ghosts.
— sold them in her business too,
and switched out old ghosts for new ghosts
When I would come home from school
something might be gone,
someone might be gone,
I would mourn them,
feeling a private sense of loss.
Yet, she tenaciously loved many,
keeping intricately carved objects,
intriguing designs, paintings,
and beautifully crafted things
that all speak in different ways——
ribbons and rugs, pewter tankards, trivets,
and copper pots, tavern stools, candlesticks,
and wooden bowls, leather bound books,
andirons, and butter molds, concertinas
bellows, crockery and yokes,
shoe lasts and sheet music,
ring trees and branding irons…
All this makes me belive
that people
live on through what they make
somewhere along the way
i forgot who i was
and the weight of the world
began to push me
down
down
down
until i was so low
that i never thought
i would stand again
somewhere along the way
i forgot that i am a female atlas
capable of carrying the weight
of the whole globe with ease
that i am an amazon
capable of performing
more feats than
hercules himself
and then i remember
and i stand up
and i put the world on my shoulder
like my purse strap
and i face the day
You turned our conversation
inside out last night,
and I felt it
like when I bite my lip.
When I woke up
it changed the feel of it,
honey sweet yogurt
slipped into my mouth,
swollen lips embraced
the tip of the spoon,
cool custard caressing them.
It hurt but I did not pull away
from your sweet feast.
