During a routine check through the bookstore for poetry collections that were recommended to me but which I didn't yet own, I found a copy of Mohsen Emadi's Standing On Earth (translated by Lyn Coffin). Nobody had ever mentioned it to me, but the cover art looked interesting so I picked it up, flipped through it, and, as I was on a break from work, had to force myself to stop reading it until got home. There's a lot of death in this book, and yet the tone is...reverently casual? It reminded me that just the previous day, my coworker and I had many conversations with people coming back from the Women's March in Boston, which had jogged this particular memory loose. The Yellow Checkered Scarf And The Flask You Stole From Your Father
Standing outside the funeral home nostalgic for nicotine but comfortable with a scarved mouth I consider the flask of your favorite whiskey pressing its emblem into my left leg Our proximity didn't buy me a ticket in the line of hearses and black sedans so I am once again waiting for you to finish your family commitments The protesters on their way back from a march you would have supported but never attended smile at this scarf that I mistakenly remembered as a gift from you All of them insulated by their politics White as polar bears Chatty as gulls They are meeting for drinks at the steakhouse we escaped to when your relatives came to town And this scarf that I probably got as a Christmas gift from my mother has earned me an invitation to join them but I will go inside with this flask you stole from your father And one more time drink with you while your family says uncomfortable things about your past The two of us staying perfectly still unable to speak
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InteractionalityAn ongoing conversation between writers and the text that they're reading. Archives
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