Inspired/borrowed by Metastasis by Ja’net Danielo
She can’t remember and maybe that is why I keep rearranging
my living room, thinking about where the floor lamp should go.
My way of living buries me deep into a hole. She can’t remember and this
is what I tell myself when I am frightened into thinking that I am forgetting what a floor lamp is.
Yesterday night I overheard a woman telling a boy to adopt a bunny
and pretend to be one so that the bunny thinks he is also a bunny
and befriends him and makes him one of their own like
the wild ones do with each other in the bushes
of thirteenth street. I want to know, when do bunnies
stop being rabbits?
Four miles from here, where my
grandma who doesn’t know me lives, the old folks paint pictures
And watch movies while forgetting what they ate for breakfast and
play bingo without knowing how to count.
Across the street, the night owl of eateries,
the pine cone open until forever
and ever where I eat chicken dumpling alphabet soup
every weekend because my grandma doesn’t know how to make
it anymore. She can’t remember and the cold noodles
in the warm broth repel each other like oil and water
and while I wait for my soup to settle I draw a picture of what the
noodle-alphabet spells out today and think about
what it’s going to spell out inside my stomach later and I wonder if
this is what my grandma meant when said that you must
not add your noodles in too late before our 67th introduction
where she asks me my name again and we sit in each others company
talking about the weather over and over again.
Pine Cone is a truck stop and Rabbits are the same thing
as bunnies and my alphabet soup says that my floor lamp
should probably go in the corner.
Sofia Cortes is a junior studying Journalism with a Writing Intensive English minor. This piece is inspired by Metastasis by Ja’net Danielo.
Victor Keppler, National Museum of American History, https://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=record_ID=nmah_1896586&repo=DPLA