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IN THE KITCHEN
It was always a fiasco
to put away the dishes
to stack the amber glasses
one on top of the other
toss the miss-matched
silverware in the drawer
stolen from the airlines
or the Fountainbleau Hotel
during my parent’s honeymoon.
We always like to steal
a little memory
dad said with a smile
and so we had a collection
of stolen things
in my childhood
the memory of them
coming back to me
at the oddest moments
sticking to me like the humid nights
in New Jersey
the way you stuck to me
that day in the kitchen
the third time we kissed
when your hands
went beneath
my peach sweater
to touch my breasts
I think I’m falling
in love with you, you said
and I kept silent in the kitchen
thinking I heard
the jerking of those amber glasses
being stacked on top of one another
and the clanging of silverware
tossed inside the drawer
like I tossed my peach sweater
in the closet
after we kissed:
you stole a little of me
that afternoon
and inside my sweater
I stole a bit of your smell.
IN BARREN LANDS
They’re
planting
trees
in dusty fields
where their mothers
and fathers
once soiled their feet
two women
wear
flowered
scarves
on their heads
bend
and
dig
with their hands:
fleshy shovels
holding the earth,
tilling the soil,
digging passages
like human veins:
calling their ancestors
beneath
the
ground
to send us prayers,
to chant
the ancient songs.
THE LITTLE RED DOG
I
When you forget
that the red dog in your hands
was playing with you yesterday
it doesn’t bother you
sitting on your lap
it’s feet folded in your hands
looking at you with small black eyes
you don’t remember doing this before
II
it’s as if you never remembered rain
something that happened throughout your life
when you wore your galoshes
sifting through streets in New York
III
so many years
in the cream-colored house
so many people walking past
the two red maple trees
IV
memories seeped
into the pink-flowered wallpaper
in your bedroom
the touch of his hands
only a memory of the wind now
and his kisses
maybe the saliva from your lips
dripping
V
just like my little baby girl
who doesn’t even remember
when I give her the same red dog
again and again
she smiles at me bursting with laughter
and I burst back into her
a kiss kiss kiss on the cheek
and then again
VI
I could play this game forever
but for you whose memory has trailed back
as if the world lived in reverse
and rain could go back up to the sky
memory lost in you is different
than new memory gained by a child
VII
we live in between those two worlds
watching the world lose
watching the world gain life
in ourselves.
© 2005 Tina Demirdjian
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