by Yocheved Friedman
I am sometimes afraid to read poetry.
Because more often than not, I come across words that
I’d wished I’d conjured up myself.
When people write that my father’s beard,
is the texture of splintering wood.
The sound of snow, like my cracking knuckles.
When I taste sugarless coffee and I imagine rough things scratching dry things.
When they say the world has frozen over and grown into the sound of machinery.
Quivering like synthetic fingers and pulses.
It’s as if they’ve minted a new language without me.
I feel liberated by their words, but caged because I cannot replicate them.
So let me write just this.
My own.
Piece of language.
When I sit here at this table,
Guzzling words, faking sentences.
Chewing on other people’s sounds.
Trying on their metaphors for size.
I imagine the world beyond my hands.
The shape of human silhouettes.
Giant glasses of lemonade emptying into the sky.
The ice cubes melting into immutable landmarks.
Other people have seen these things before I have.
I see keys on the dining room table,
while I imagine beautiful words
In other people’s poems.
