April 13, 2018

Deja Vu, by Carmen Gimenez Smith











Today, a poem by Carmen Giménez Smith.

Déjà Vu 
by Carmen Giménez Smith

It happened to me once.
Winter came, and snow quilted every inch.
I stood on the soapbox, as I was told,
and made staggering accusations. The public ignored,
so I retreated behind the potted yew.
I was waiting for a moment I was supposed to have
on a balcony overlooking the giant, gridded landscape.
The sounds I made underscored what I meant.
The potted yew was the face that I wore.
It was a metaphor for what could be.
The public endured.
I put the potted yew behind me. I made staggering an art.
That wasn’t the truth though. Winter
comes and negates all it covers. It doesn’t matter where I stand.
The balcony is a floor without walls.
The yew is a hurt that shadows.
The instance lives beneath us. Not just us, everybody.
The shadow hurts us. I make sounds like
the truth. Fate and theft are involved.
I think I told you this before. The floor is a wall that obscures.
The yew is quilt without color. Shadow is a fate you involved.
The yew on a balcony negates. I told you this before.
I was left undone. It’s what I meant. Underneath everyone.




from Odalisque in Pieces. Copyright © 2009 Carmen Gimenez Smith / University of Arizona Press.

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About the poet:  Born in New York, poet Carmen Giménez Smith earned a BA in English from San Jose State University and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Iowa. She writes lyric essays as well as poetry, and is the author of the poetry chapbook Casanova Variations (2009), the full-length collection Odalisque in Pieces (2009), and the memoir Bring Down the Little Birds: On Mothering, Art, Work, and Everything Else (2010). Her most recent book, Milk and Filth (2013), was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Giménez Smith’s work explores issues affecting the lives of females, including Latina identity, and frequently references myth and memory. Giménez Smith is the editor-in-chief of Puerto del Sol and publisher of Noemi Press. She teaches at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico.


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