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Alicia Ostriker – Ⅰ -

Family: Attemped Speech 

 

For Amy

 

 

 

 

A family of no conversation

alternating monologues and silence

 

 

at time shouts and blows

someone hitting her head against the apartment wall

 

 

as her own mother did

which she so hated

 

 

we loved each other only through our pores

what to do with this love we could not conceivably say

 

 

so family is a way of demonstrating

how incomplete we are while belonging to each other

 

 

like tires of an armored car we can never drive

artichoke leaves around a hairy heart

 

 

dear sister let us tell this open secret

let us wave the painfully specific dented kitchen spoons

 

 

take the canned peaches from the dusty shelf

listen to the radiator knock

 

 

let the story flow like milk

to a nursing woman’s breasts

 

 

let it open like the door

to the crying room

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