“What else, what else belongs in the joyous city?” ~ Ursula LeGuin
This morning a student asks me if I’ve always
known what I’ve wanted— What she means is
in relation to the decision on her major,
after changing at least six times. The last
time was from a pre-med program. But see,
I point out, that’s why you’re the only one
who can use zygomatic in the abecedarian
exercise! I want to say I almost failed high school
Literature, for not figuring out the difference
between metaphor and simile, or metonymy from
synecdoche. I could’ve wound up in music
conservatory, or studying journalism for pre-
law. Yet here I am, talking about confessional
poetry and how in the experience of the colonized
writer/the writer of color it’s not just
the unburdening of intimate personal narrative,
but possibly the enactment of the colonizer’s
desire to extract a confession of original
impurity, in order for him to grant absolution.
Of course I didn’t know either what I wanted
back then; just as this morning I didn’t quite
know if I wanted fried eggs again, or should I
open a can of corned beef to sauté with onions
and garlic? On the drive to work I couldn’t stop
thinking of things I don’t know what to do about
—like when one of my daughters texts to say
she is lonely, always lonely; or when I’m told
another one is afraid our relationship is mostly
superficial. Would it be easier then to say one
knows only that what one wants is everything
the current state isn’t? O wing of my being, o sweet
evening prayer. I couldn’t tell you how long I’ve
envied the ones who say they are so sure, the ones who never
seem to run through trial and error and error and error.
In response to Via Negativa: Match maker.