Emma Goldman-Sherman
Home is not the root of human
the way root is the seed of radical.
A home can be a human wrong
and cold like ice unsweetened
unshaved.
I left at 13 full of fractured seams
the place where my mother fought as a warring nation
against the rapids of a river running its silent stream
as if denial was a seat at the dinner table. Rocks
in the rush of the current every right
I’d have to try to swallow their squash
their mash their unpleasable peas erased.
No way to stand the squall
as if physical pain could make their
electrified air more bearable. Emma Goldman-Sherman
How fast
can anyone grow ripped up and out
by the roots to learn to unground ourselves
to never touch down to stay off-kilter
yet feel the tilt as plumb?
Must we all unlatch
from our sources
to survive them
learn to ignore hunger hide any true need
never crave the clarity of clapboards
to be more familiar with a front
as in a storm instead of a porch?
Windows offer thin views to puzzle a room called living
where sunlight’s absence wilts the unwatered
houseplant forced to falsely bloom,
how I had to learn to vine to find a different pot
to replant myself to grow a radically different root
to believe in to invent a sun I never knew.
Listen to Emma Goldman-Sherman’s Abraham’s Daughters at The Parsnip Ship
