Kim Triedman
poems and other disasters
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Physical memory
This must have been the way
I waited in the womb:
knees up, arms crossed
at the wrists, right hand balled
within the socket of the left.
It’s where my body goes when I
forget to pay attention.
For instance: the birdfeeder
off the breakfast room was filled
with suet – that I remember –
and the hornets in the tool shed,
singing of death. Only
once did I stop for gas,
in all those hours and hours,
but by the time I made it home
it was too late; the thing was
done. In retrospect, our voices
were like shards of glass,
murderous -
mesmerizing -
my arms were pleated
tightly to my chest like
the wings of a bat.
(first
published by The Aurorean, Dec. 2007)
