5/2/2019 Poetry by Amy Shimshon-Santo Mayastar CC All the Things (He Never Said) 1. zenith television torso old carts and boxes something died here. loitering things he would not throw out carpeted his skin with lumps and splotches I pressed down on my jugular vein to stop my heart from speaking his fishhook acknowledgement wasn’t enough to plug the rickety raft my fat eyelids sank first in the salt water then his ribcage. mildewed hammered from doors. shut I sat across from a different man’s torso listening. watched him bob up and down in all the things he’d never said 2. when we split the deadwood I posted a picture of him smiling on Instagram. zoomed in. content. I wanted it archived there as evidence glistening eyes. deep satisfaction that joy happened, days before our continents broke and all his silence came spilling out 3. I buried our blueprints beneath the mattress so no one else could see a storm raged quietly inside my head. my chest shook the windows and doors lifeless dreams filled with wind rippled on mangled trees I watched them sway. Ghosts slow sorrow came knocking hungry for my flesh. it wanted proof to fill disappointments mouth-hole reeds swished aside a whittled wooden figure fell out landing hard on the floor — conclusion 4. I don’t have words for reappearance so I study the art of open hands moonlight melts inside I’m a splinter in a crowded box of teeth. departures leave you naked babbling with shadows I peel open an orange from the garden and it bleeds all over my hands Piñata (Effigy) the heart’s soft center dark pool of night. stench-wood longing. my body still tender melting. secular time: after his disappearance in the dappled shade of a spider gum tree. I clutch a long wooden stick head coiled into my chest heaving breath. I want to whack something but there’s no target no aim to take. the flimsy toy dangles. inanimate effigy it’s form spread open like the feathers of a dead raptor heavy paper mache carcass circles round-and-round on its rope. belly emptied hard candy spilled. insects will come gather it up. invade their paper wrappers the remains of a celebration. quiet destruction. punched in piñata. struck hard. bam-bop-bam-bop-bam busted-open with a bat loose candy strewn on the dirt guests long gone. only entrails no children to scatter and hunt for sugar call the vultures. I’ll be here waiting by the spinning rope shooing away hummingbirds beneath its silent branches when we split. the world sent my body 23,701 miles away to be. see other worlds I returned to a graveyard of a former life. got down on my hands and knees with a small paper bag and scraped the earth for sweetness What’s Time Anyway? Your mornings are someone else’s night shifting along the circumference of the globe Our belief in time is made of air, a cloud of condensed water vapor that won’t hold your weight. If time is a made up thing, how can I unlatch myself from it? So basic. I wake and ask, what time is it? When I sleep, Is it time for bed? Time is a kind of pottery, made of earth and hubris, that will break. First of my family, born in LA a place where Simon Rodia built mosaic towers from broken dishes he collected from his neighbors Then he buried his car beneath house, and made a cement ship that would never sail back home to Italy without an earthquake We try to be here and with our ancestors at the same time I tell the next generation, time is real These times are yours. In other words, I lie And for good reason. I want there to be a future My children bang a drum and paint the walls yellow They believe in time. I’ll never say a word otherwise However powerless we may feel. We are it The future’s only hope. I wonder what the future thinks of us our destructive, polluting habits Foolish children, grown into stories I’ve read books by people who are dead Books, leftover stuff, like my dad’s suspenders or his polka dot bow tie I can’t find. But I see him in the mirror. His face in mine. My face becoming his Now that I’m in mid-life, I no longer believe in leaving a mark. I understand that I am an accidental accumulation. Cumulonimbus The answers may lie in the smallest things Things I’ve overheard. Witnessed. Instigated An inspirational glance. You were a dancer I remind myself. Flow. You know how to move off balance. I let go ![]() Amy Shimshon-Santo is a poly-lingual poet and essayist with immediate family on three continents. She’s been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in creative non-fiction (2017), Best of the Net in poetry (2018), and was recognized on the National Honor Roll for Service Learning. Her poetry collection Even the Milky Way is Undocumented is forthcoming with Unsolicited Press (2020). You can read her poetry Yes Poetry, Zócalo Public Square, Anti-Heroin Chic, Lady Liberty Lit, Awkward Mermaid Lit Mag, Rag Queen Periodical, Rose Quartz Journal, Full Blede, Spectrum, and her essays in SAGE Publications, Entropy, Public, Tiferet Journal, UC Press, SUNY Press, and Critical Planning Journal. Comments are closed.
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