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Teresa A. Phipps

mother and child

We're all dreamers; we don't know who we are.

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Some machine made us; machine of the world, the constricting family.

Then back to the world, polished by soft whips.

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We dream; we don't remember.

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Machine of the family: dark fur, forests of the mother's body.

Machine of the mother: white city inside her.

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And before that: earth and water.

Moss between rocks, pieces of leaves and grass.

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And before, cells in a great darkness.

And before that, the veiled world.

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This is why you were born: to silence me.

Cells of my mother and father, it is your turn

to be pivotal, to be the masterpiece.

​

I improvised; I never remembered.

Now it's your turn to be driven;

you're the one who demands to know:

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Why do I suffer? Why am I ignorant?

Cells in a great darkness. Some machine made us;

it is your turn to address it, to go back asking

what am I for? What am I for?

island

The curtains parted. Light

coming in. Moonlight, then sunlight.

Not changing because time was passing

but because the one moment had many aspects.

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White lisianthus in a chipped vase.

Sound of the wind. Sound

of lapping water. And hours passing, the white sails

luminous, the boat rocking at anchor.

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Motion not yet channeled in time.

The curtains shifting or stirring; the moment

shimmering, a hand moving

backward, then forward. Silence. And then

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one word, a name. And then another word:

again, again. And time

salvaged, like a pulse between

stillness and change. Late afternoon. The soon to be lost

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becoming memory; the mind closing around it. The room

claimed again, as a possession. Sunlight,

then moonlight. The eyes glazed over with tears.

And then the moon fading, the white sails flexing.

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