2 Poems

He was a part of the green leather chair,

molded to the arm rests, his legs crossed with age

like peeling vinyl. He had always been there,

from what I could remember, and I’d never seen

his frame in action. The words he spoke were gospels,

breathed from a life of gusto. I could see the nose hair

from across the room, white and gentle, sprouting

from the end of his nose, and always in motion.

It sank with his skin, mourning the loss of a life well lived,

proud of the generations it had seen come to pass.

I dreamed of plucking it free with my bare hands,

keeping it in a vase beneath my bed, feeding it war stories

and tales of youth it no longer devoured. I dreamed

of touching it lightly, still attached to the seam of his skin,

unzipping his nose and having tea with his brain.

I trusted him with the gospel, with the education

of what humanity should look like. I trusted him to teach me

how to grow my own nose hair, to sprout gospels from within.

Through a crack in the door, I saw him standing

at the bathroom sink, motion lingering in his long skin.

He admired himself, checked his teeth for hidden wisdom,

then plucked the white curl from the end of his nose

discarding it as if it were dust.

My hands smell like sour dough because I am making

sourdough bread, or unmaking, I should say, because the dough

is too sour and it is not shaped like bread, but rather like

a bird flat in the road. I babysit outside the park

because I like to sit and listen to the wind sing, but all I can

hear are the children screaming and screaming about the plan

or lack thereof and pickleball. I do not know what pickleball

is and frankly, neither do they so the screaming keeps until I feed them

answers like medicine, down swift and painful, and now

they do not see me as an adult. I am not an adult. I cannot bake

bread or talk to children or love the way people want me to. I am a girl

with unmade bread, unkempt hair, and a distrust for children

that I have been told is a feeling projected about myself.

I am not a girl, but a projector sitting on the floor of a room with dust

collecting on my shoulders and FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY sign

covering one of my eyes. I have worn this sticker my whole life. No one

minds that it is yellowed and not all that sticky anymore. They use me.

They use me to watch themselves grow old, to watch their children when

they do not want their children, to watch the way I only play

one movie over and over and over until the plot doesn’t make

sense and the words sound like translations.

My hands are still here smelling like sour dough and I scrub them

until they smell like hands. Hands and soap and sour dough residue.

I will watch them scrub themselves until I feel them

watching me, watching them.