Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog)
A. Van Jordan
Because a razor cuts across a frame of film,
I wince, squinting my eye,
and because my day needs assembly
to make sense of the scenes anyway,
making a story from some pieces of truth, I go
outside to gather those pieces.
Thousands of moments spooling out
frames of mistakes in my day.
As if anyone's to blame,
as if anyone could interpret the colliding
images, again and again, dragging
my imagination behind me,
I begin assembling.
I don't know anything, so I seek
directions, following the path
of ants from your palm, out
the apartment door to
a beach. Is this where I'm
supposed to ask if my hands on you
bend some light around shade? Maybe
I'm not ready for the answer. They say
art imitates what we can sculpt or write
or just see when we turn ourselves
inside out. I can't turn my eye away
from the sight of failure. The rain pelts rooftops.
I listen to the song, thinking
when the sun comes back,
beating down the door
in my head, I'll salvage whatever sits
still long enough for me to render,
before anyone knows what really happened.
I remember trying on many narratives growing up until finally one day the stories I'd been telling myself about my life became the truth, just as much as the stories my characters tell me, are true.
I'm beginnng to believe I've pieced my story, my reality, my life together in the same manner women used to piece and stich quilts together using remnants.
I suppose I'm thinking this way because I'm creating a new narrative and seeing the old story for what it is: frayed bits and pieces, that I stiched together until I had a large enough quilt to wrap around me and keep me warm.
Each time I've reinvented myself I've felt, this, this is it, this feels right. And I'm sure it did, then. It's time again to rewrite my narrative. The past is what it is, even the present is, and I can't and really don't want to change them, but, the future is the new story I'm writing, starting right now...
It was an overcast rainy day when Danna turned off her computer...
Enjoyed this poem, I think I read it as if you were telling it to me over a cup of tea.
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