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.
Author
Elena Georgiou
Elena Georgiou is the author of Rhapsody of the Naked Immigrants (Harbor Mountain Press, 2009) and mercy mercy me (University of Wisconsin Press, 2000).
Date Published: 2000-01-01
Source URL: https://poets.org/poem/questions-mind-poet-while-she-washes-her-floors