Martha Silano
With Headphones Blaring, I Devotional Warrior
by the sea, in the grass that is also lichens and mosses,
tiny flowers I think called blue-eyed Mary,
the boats back and forth,
and the wakes, and the waking of my mind as I unwind
from the cinching and drowning in the buttonholes
of words, in the floating experiments
of sound. Today as I began to waken, I remembered a dream,
but quickly it was gone, gone like that Dead song,
When there was no ear to hear.
Like all the dreams I have but can’t recall. Nothing’s
gonna bring them back. I even miss the one
where I return to the house
where I grew up, my mother on the front porch refusing to talk to me.
Wishing I could dream her back to the art museum
we strolled through the last time I saw her,
the Warhol of Dolly Parton, the Deborah Butterfield horse,
where we took turns posing under Louise Bourgeoise’s
“Maman” as I read to her from a placard:
She was a monument to me.
Martha Silano has authored five poetry collections, most recently Gravity Assist (Saturnalia Books 2019). She is co-author, with Kelli Russell Agodon, of The Daily Poet: Day-by-Day Prompts for Your Writing Practice. Martha’s poems are forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review, Image, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. She teaches at Bellevue College.