Reality Check
After Ada Limón's "The Conditional"
Say footsteps mean earthquakes.
Say their aftershocks are triggers.
Say the tsunamis are weeping tears
Say they flood the world.
Say, then, that the lava flows are glacial streams
And say you can walk on the sky.
Say that blue is actually red and
Say we can’t know anything at all.
-
Say the world has turned inside out.
-
Say we never left the house, always
clutched the keys for the swords they were,
never kneeling. Say we never said
toddlers were right. Say we were always
the parents: Dad. And Mom.
-
Say tomorrow doesn’t come and we read
through our memories, finding peace
in the never unlocked house. Say
we sprawl in our utopia, together,
backs turned on the inside-out Earth
withering in the light of too many stars.
-
Say, That’s every day. Say, It wouldn’t be
extraordinary. Say we haven’t reduced
truth to our fingernail house: still standing,
just us, waiting.
* * *
Thank you for reading! This is part of a series of poetic emulations, where I take a poem I love and either write an answer, a continuation, or something new inspired by it.
About the Creator
Mackenzie Davis
“When you are describing a shape, or sound, or tint, don’t state the matter plainly, but put it in a hint. And learn to look at all things with a sort of mental squint.” Lewis Carroll
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Comments (2)
Another beautiful piece of poetry. I would be interested to hear your principles in how your stanzas are constructed. They flow wonderfully.
I really like this one and love this idea you have at the moment of taking a poem you like and responding to it in some way - very clever. Had never read the original poem before, but love it too! Great work, Mackenzie!