‘Aubade: The Candidate Announces’
— Joyce Chong
Even now
I am a small child walking into a room
calling a name and hearing nothing in return.
This week, a poem by Amorak Huey published in pidgeonholes that explores the steadfast grip of the past, and the relentlessly ambiguous nature of recollection that defines us; memories like new, weightless organs we grow and carry with us through our lives.
Even now
I crave. I stumble. I stammer through a speech
I did not write, except for the parts I wrote,
part impulse, part promise, part of the pattern.
There are significant images interwoven into the poem, shown to us in wind-shifted, curtain-view fragments. Huey’s writing serves as a reminder that poetry is another form of storytelling, without laying bare the bones of our closets.
and if this sounds cynical, then you understand
how a body is built. How a body is a kind of nation.