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Words for House Story after Li-Young Lee So another word for mother is narrate. Listen, thinks Narrate, as she sweeps light into corners. She sees that the windows are open. Narrate likes to nest her hands at the kitchen window for comfort. She likes the bird that rings like a
telephone. Narrate needs the wind to feel at ease again. She decides to leave the sand on the floor. She looks high and low, helps curtains relax, doors to swing open. Lays hands on their shoulders. Says, “Breathe.” Sashay is another word for
child. Sashay darts around a corner. Narrate holds some underwear. Books are falling. Sashay is tumbling head first down stairs and yells, “It’s fun.” Narrate says, “Listen, this is driving me
crazy!” Another word for listen is I-don’t-have-time. Her secret word for husband is also listen, yet again, I-do-not-understand. Sashay persuades the neighbor dog to ride the bucket of his mini-backhoe. Dares the sweet turtle into sleeping on the roof! Sashay does a slow, inscrutable dance round the bare corners of karate chop another way of saying a-daughter’s-empty-room. “What happened in karate chop?” Sashay wants
to know. Narrate leaves the vacuum in the middle of karate chop, tapes a lavender story of paint chips down the center of one wall. But it’s hard for her in karate chop.
Depressions left in the carpet hit like fists. Suddenly,
Listen is downstairs saying, “I should change my
name to Emphasize. Do you know every light in the house is on? I just don’t
understand.” Oh, Narrate knows: Listen spells out decoy when he means the words for need-you. But she worries. Some days, she cries “Decoy!” when she stumbles
on his love. Praise for Your Heart and How It Works: In these resonant poems, JoAnn Balingit
shows us what is possible when the poet allows herself to be gratefully
confounded—allows herself to, as Rilke told us, truly love the questions. – The poems in this small book leave me a little
breathless. JoAnn Balingit’s poems deconstruct love’s clichés, shrewdly
celebrating the heart as a live object . . .This is a poet who possesses both
wisdom and talent. Our poetic landscape is richer for her presence. – |
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