with some help from Ahmad
I wanna write lyrical, but all I got is magical. 
My book needs a poem talkin bout I remember when 
Something more autobiographical 
Mi familia wanted to assimilate, nothing radical, 
Each month was a struggle to pay our rent 
With food stamps, so dust collects on the magical. 
Each month it got a little less civil 
Isolation is a learned defense 
When all you wanna do is write lyrical. 
None of us escaped being a criminal
Of the state, institutionalized when 
They found out all we had was magical. 
White room is white room, it’s all statistical— 
Our calendars were divided by Sundays spent 
In visiting hours. Cold metal chairs deny the lyrical. 
I keep my genes in the sharp light of the celestial. 
My history writes itself in sheets across my veins. 
My parents believed in prayer, I believed in magical 
Well, at least I believed in curses, biblical
Or not, I believed in sharp fists,  
Beat myself into lyrical. 
But we were each born into this, anger so cosmical 
Or so I thought, I wore ten chokers and a chain 
Couldn’t see any significance, anger is magical. 
Fists to scissors to drugs to pills to fists again 
Did you know a poem can be both mythical and archeological? 
I ignore the cataphysical, and I anoint my own clavicle.
Copyright © 2021 by Suzi F. Garcia. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 28, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.