A Poem by April Salzano
in nearly equal proportions. What I can protect
you from multiplies thousandfold, hands
of strangers, lights too bright, sounds unrecognized.
When I am not there to translate, what happens?
There are pants on your legs, fabric
touching skin, arms around you, unwanted
as a straitjacket. Voices are but noises, meaning,
lost, bounces off walls, comes back more jumbled.
You have grown stocky. Your carbohydrate-bloat
has become a conversation piece.
I want to find the child you replaced, the tiny baby
you hid under the bed when you spread like ivy
in the sheets, taking over the house.
Vines hold my heart, walls eclipsed by climbing
shoots, searching for shade.