Questions In The Mind Of A Poet While She Washes Her Floors

Will obedience leave me unknown to myself, stranded?

Is it enough for me to know where I'm from?

If I do more truth-telling will I be happier with what I say?

If I had three days to live would I still be sensible?

Is the break between my feelings and my memory 
the reason I'm unable to sustain rage?

Am I a peninsula slowly turning into an island?

If I grew up gazing at the ocean would I think
life came in waves?

If I were a nomad would I measure time
by the length of a footstep?

If I can see a cup drop to the floor and shatter
why can't I see it gather itself back together?

If a surgeon cut out my mistakes
would the scar be under my heart?

How much time will I spend protecting myself
from what the people I love call love?

Would my desires feel different if I lived forever?

Will my desires destroy my politics?

Is taboo sex the ultimate aphrodisiac?

If I fall in love with the wrong person
How do I learn to un-in love myself?

Can I make my intuition into a divining rod?

Is music the closest I can get to God?

How many of these questions will remain
when I kneel to wash my floors again?
Credit

From Mercy Mercy Me by Elena Georgiou. Copyright © 2000. Reprinted by permission of the University of Wisconsin Press. All rights reserved.