[ x ] Animated
Many years now owned by you. [ x ] picked from close clone
family on high shop shelf of safety; bought and brought
to your lonely low home; packed up dragged across countries;
used; and now, [ x ], a holey tri-eyed matted grey jagged
tooth torn tired worn out case; now, just because Maggie gave
poetic exercise, you think it’s OK to come invade [ x ]
silent protection; OK to get all up inside and colonize [ x ]
headspace; think, speak for [ x ]; steal [ x ] only pot-
ent power? Your human and humane God given right, right?
But all this stretched time [ x ] been a quiet sentinel of your life.
Since High School when [ x ] watched you fear filled
and freaking out in science, the vitriolic H2SO4 carbon snake
experiment gone wrong, burnt [ x ] first hole. [ x ]
pencil pen eraser compass logged all lessons. Scribes of your life
journey in journals, they highlight highs, depressed points,
then whisper your noted secrets back to [ x ]. [ x ] knows all
you write, rub out, choose to forget. Silently sees and listens.
Box. [ x ] bristled. [ x ] knew what Box had felt: all
talking about Box; forcing formed thinking into onto Box; another
powerless portal that swallows the world; takes inside what
ever is shoved in. [ x ] knows that universal emptiness; knows all
about wishing really hard. You imagine what [ x ] dreams
too; freedom, flight, a new skin, colour, different shape, a simple
bubble bath by candlelight…with a sentient [ y ]; a say in
when [ x ] is opened and closed; unguarded sleep. All eyes open
watching worried when stationery protections are plucked out
of [ x ] safe warm womb and forced to work against their will.
Quite happy? You think you have animated me? Last night, green
ball point told me about the lines copied from Gibran; You
and the stone are one. There is a difference only in heart-beats. You
may still remember the separated solid illusion of science.
Quiet, you still might learn my true atomic universal lingua franca.
Listen! Let me be now. I thought I had a constitutional right
to remain silent. You go ponder more on what you read. Your heart
may beat faster than mine but whose was the most tranquil?
Celia A. Sorhaindo was born in The Commonwealth of Dominica. She migrated with her family to England in 1976, when she was 8 years old, returning home in 2005. Her poems have been published in several Caribbean journals, ANMLY, New Daughters of Africa Anthology, and longlisted for the UK National Poetry Competition. She is co-compiler of Home Again: Stories of Migration and Return, published by Papillote Press and her first poetry chapbook collection, Guabancex, was published in February 2020, also by Papillote Press. Celia is a Cropper Foundation Creative Writers Workshop fellow and a Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop fellow. celiasorhaindo.com
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