Poetry: Selections from Shira Hoffman

Faking It

 

If I make the bed, then spend all day lying on the floor

will you know that I am faking? Will you tell them

my cat has the flu? Will you give me away?

Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?

Did she teach you how to get the sheets so clean?

 

The hooks and eyes that fasten on my smile

are something to unlearn. I don’t want to come in everyday

and see your face either.

Maybe I’ll circle your name in the obituaries.

Maybe I’ll put it in my scrapbook with the rest.

 

No one wants to work this hard.

Missing Person

 

If you were to find me stumbling streetward

would you return me to me?

 

I’ll give you my number if you promise

only to call when it rains milkgrass

 

on the filthy city. Will you come

when I call?  Head off into the middle

 

of a sandstorm? Return the thoughts

you’ve stolen to my mind?  

 

I doubted you, but now I see the blood

on your hands is not the guilty kind.  

 

You have been scrubbing the floorboards.

Do you notice when your fingers start to bleed,

 

or do you wait until the wood is stained?

Space for Rent

 

I know you aren’t interested

in listening to

people. But you must

 

help me. I’ve had my mind

shut off. I stopped paying

the bills and they switched off

 

the power. I phoned to inquire

and heard them say “Maybe you’ve got to

stop feeding it, you’re getting lazy

 

and fat.” I gnawed on the receiver

running my tongue over the holes.

“I’m pretty sure I used to need that,”

 

Two tones answered me

the hum reverberating in each ear.

Do Not Enter

 

You took up residence

in my house. True,

 

in a room I was not using,

cobwebs growing thick

 

over the atrium. I don’t know

how you forced the bolt.

 

Others have tried,

their failure, bone piles

 

by the locked door. I evicted

you, but your stubbornness

 

is infinite. You claim you aren’t here,

so how can you leave?

Construction

 

You were a wharf and I was standing on you.

Built in the sea, you were

strong enough to cling to.

The sun bleached out the eyes

you didn’t have yet. You were still

 

made of boards. Without a thought

of holding me up, of being walked on,

or from. If you think

my intention is to harm you,

then I think you’ve finally

 

had a thought, and well

I guess that’s progress.

If I take you apart board by board

can I rebuild you into a wooden man?

 

Shira Hoffman (she/her) is a poet living with multiple invisible disabilities. Her work has appeared in a Writers Lair Books anthology. In addition, she has also received an MFA from the New School and worked in publishing until she relocated to Sommerville, MA where the people are still weird, but the air is much cleaner.