Poetry by Kristin Chemis
Inside your house
you have pieces
that seem to have been there from
an ancient time, old relics of days
when you were happier
and could afford to gather adornments lightly—
when you took unwanted
furniture off others’ hands
or delighted in an unexpected find,
filling up your home and all the while laughing, planning
your future and moving forward, always moving forward,
until many years later
when you look back and a hazy amnesia has crept in—
where did I get this, who might have used it before me?
Why did I even bring this into my home,
and—how did I manage to forget?
The unrooted ties to an ever-changing past
float around you and seem to change
their color, their look. They are almost
no longer recognizable, except for a hint
of some pleasant memory, some remembered feeling
of lightheartedness and freedom.
The clock’s hands have journeyed
around and around a million times, and you
don’t even know now where the clock came from.
Kristin Chemis is the mother of twin boys and a baby girl. Her writing has been published in Press 53, Apple in the Dark, and San Diego Woman’s Magazine. Kristin is also the author (under pen name K.K. Tucker) of the children’s book The Parrots Next Door.
