Post-Elect

Post-Elect

Facebook
Twitter
Email
Flipboard
Pocket

The sun predicted this, with its rays determined
through the blinds like blades of why.
No one has given me an education for what this means,
a destruction of firsts: our first black president, our first
French kiss, pre-Apocalyptic, our first skinned knee like a heart
in brown corduroy. The first time my grandmother
voted after she earned her citizenship, American flag devout
to her lapel. The first time I saw my grandfather’s autopsy
report, & it felt like renal failure. Gunned down by a white cop.
The first time I heard the Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?”,
the first time I kept that song on repeat, soothed by Kim
Deal’s cradle of coos. The first time I drove until I was out of gas.
The first time I waited up all night for my cheating
father to come home, the first week I kept this on repeat.
My first cigarette, train track, & belly button safety pin.
When I realized my mother didn’t teach us Spanish
in her desperation to protect us. When I noticed
that memory was condemned to a pile of nectar & that I
was guardian of that sweetness. That it was no coincidence
I treated paper like skin. The first time I felt the burden
of empathy. My first stretchmark. The first time
I tasted coconut. The first time my brother confessed
like a pile of bricks. My first Judy Garland, “Waltz with a
Swing/Americana,” the needle screeching off the record.
First love. My first earthquake, the ground shivering
in its uncertainty, a pandemic of exclamation marks.
The sofa rocked back & forth, but not too
violently like hope. Hope, a first lasting longer than its next.

Ad Policy
x