“Object Permanence” and Other Poems
You are a black hole
because you have been told
you are a black hole.
Every time you come close
to finding your [other] name,
the hungry part of you awakens, devouring
your definition. This deity wanders
through the interstitial marshes
of your body—the parts
choked out by rushweeds—destroying
the [soft] parts. To be [defined]
is to claim object permanence
in the order of things. How do you take
your place among rocks and mountains—
how do you say, i am [alive]
without losing yourself?
You find it through everything
around you. You measure
by what is [missing]. You return to this
burial ground again [and] again,
searching for two-names
and anywhere there is [enough]
space to lay down
your knife.
Sweat that smells like yeast,
the touch of lived-in linen
against a cheek. Rough
hands that press into your arm
like pressing into a mango.
A broken suyod at the sink / or a bottle of efficascent oil.
Lines in a face seen only when close enough
to touch / gray hairs that grow a new crop each season.
A door left open
a crack. When you come home,
a dimming porchlight and a kitchen
filled with the smell of simmering pospas.
The intimacy of a mother with a shape like your own,
a look that says come here, child.
Edited by Briana Gwin.
The header image was created by Natasha Loewy and Owen Takabayashi, featured artists for the On Permanence anthology.
