Today's poem is by Nancy Miller Gomez

House of Freaks
       

Come closer.
This is where I get to be the person
I am. Odd and unnumbered.
My kitchen teeth. My sponge tongue.
My paper doll skin. Here is where
I unwind the coil
of my hands and string my bare
face up like a lantern. Look,
we're like a family of road flares.
Did we get your attention? See,
I'm shedding my last pair
of eyes. I'm not watching
the parade of strangers.
We have cotton socks
and warm soup and the sound
of helicopters circling has finally
faded back into the everyday hum.
We've stopped reading the papers.
Now we make up the headlines
we want to hear. News flash:
a garden snail is crawling
across the flagstone outside.
There is a hole in the word whole
you can fall into, and if
you're not careful, your sentences
can backfire like a muscle car
on the interstate of your mouth.
But if you wipe your feet
and shut the door, you can
come in. Welcome home.

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Copyright © 2024 Nancy Miller Gomez All rights reserved
from Inconsolable Objects
YesYes Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission