Raggedy Ann

    Jessica Wharton

 

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I found a hidden room up in the eaves

Of the playroom where my old neighbor kept

Raggedy-Ann-with-no-eyes.  We believed

That in the darkness with the dust there slept

The spirits of the faces that we found

In grayscale photo albums with each name

And date in cursive on the back. Around

The rafters we’d see shadows that became

The ghosts inside our brains. There was one night

I saw a little boy sit Indian-style

Across the floor from me.  His face was white.

He vanished when I spoke. Once in a while

I see him in the mirror, or hear him laugh,

Or find him in century-old photographs.

 

 

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What it’s like to live 

in denial (or something like it)

 

 

 

Four hundred years ago, the 

ache of nostalgia was thought to be

a physiological disease. 

 

Four hundred years ago, 

I suppose too few people ever 

left their homes to realize

 

that the longing to return

was universal. 

 

Maybe it is a sign of physical affliction, though, 

when you ache for a homecoming

 

to places that have never been your home. 

Yesterday I longed for a playground in Boston 

that smelled like vanilla cigarillos 

but I have never been 

 

to a place like that. Fact: the word 

no sometimes means yes 

in Polish.

 

I'm in love with the exact way 

a man will not use this

irony to make me cry.

 

…

 

For a very long time I thought irony

was just another word 

for sarcasm. 

 

The first time I saw a person cry

was when another person broke a window

 

and yelled about people who

wouldn't act like Americans. 

I didn't see the irony then that

 

I only act American because I don't

really know where my family came from

and the places I do know about no longer exist.

 

People ache for their stolen heritage,

but when you never had one to begin with

I guess you’re supposed to

close your eyes tight

at the smell of tobacco

 

and keep plants by your bed

so you’ll dream of wet earth.

 

 

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What it’s like to live in a state

of perpetual nostalgia

 

 

I was a coyote and he

was a tin can

I thought we were the same

because we both made

loud noises when we were kicked

 

I do not remember whether

they were hydrangeas or hyacinths

but I know that he had found them 

growing wild and placed them 

on the dashboard of my car 

when they were still bright blue 

and now only the petals are left

 

they are brown and remind me of the word “ghastly”

and they are mixed with loose change

at the bottom of my cupholders