E.J. Antonio
Geography of the changing body: File cabinets & mirrors 2016
1/
I’ve stopped looking for myself in the mirror. The face of the parent I’ve become to the parents I have startles. The child I was pushes inward becomes invisible. No! I’m still in here! They’re still there!
2/
I’ve cleared out years of hoard from the file cabinet & decades of keepsakes fell from between the papers: three funny office signs bought from Woolworth’s; Woolworth’s where anything of necessity & dreams could be found. The tag shows I paid $1.29 for each sign:
the best man for the job is a woman;
to all employees: new incentive plan – work or get fired;
a clean desk is a sign of a sick mind.
The beginning of my got to catch it on sale feminist-capitalist thought braiding itself into steel.
Over the years, I placed myself into the muted steel gray interior of the file cabinet: 1985, a handwritten letter from my grandmother, addressed to me as Miss, listing names of ministers available (approved by her, of course) for my wedding because she was no longer licensed to perform weddings in New York since she retired & moved to Virginia. Did I ever know that ministers needed a license to pray? She took pride in using the formal Mr., Miss, & Mrs. on envelopes. Handles she called them; said you should always use a handle on an envelope. Dwindling space keeps me pulling things from the cabinet. My parents’ twenty-year old tax returns. Why had I not destroyed them? I wonder if that was when this slow shifting of roles began.
3/
I’ve stopped looking for myself in the mirror. I suppose I just forget to peel away the masks, forget to reclaim the gems of who I was (am). I’ve cleaned out the file cabinet, found perfectly framed photos I took of fashion models in 1988; found the preserved delicate skeletal remains of a leaf someone gave me when I was thirty; found six beautiful blank landscape themed note cards from a Chinese Cultural Center; found the 23-year old yellowing receipt for my sofa bed; found way too many old credit card statements & checks for shredding; found the beginnings of my writing life; found pictures of my daughter at ages four, seven, nine & eleven. Strange how some years skipped. The child I was wants to come out & play with the child she was, but the mirror won’t let me.
E.J. Antonio has received fellowships in Poetry from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Hurston/Wright Foundation, and the Cave Canem Foundation. She is the author of two chapbooks, Every Child Knows, Premier Poets Chapbook Series 2007; Solstice, Red Glass Books, 2013 and an audio recording, Rituals in the marrow: Recipe for a jam session , 2010. She is a member of the improvisational group the Jazz & Poetry Choir Collective.