Thank God it’s October
(listen to the poem, read by the author)
I don’t know if i’ve
ever thought yay, for
less light in my life but
it’s been a tick bite, wasp
sting summer, with an extra
sprinkling of what do I do if
I start vomiting in aisle
eight, next to the raw
fish kind of pregnancy.
Rosh Hashanah is
here, in this new year
I will become Eama
again and stop dreaming of
becoming another
dyslexic movie star. Like
honey and apple, I’ll get
sticky and slow, a
sweet-bright delight on
tongue and at table.
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Also Unrelated to Being a Mother
(listen to the poem, read by the author)
I wish I could read daily but unpeel each word like fingernails to onion
I wish I were a home full of invisibility cloaks but hide my reading-aloud fear behind smiles
I wish I could speak more languages but my ears must submerge in sugar to learn
I wish I were funny but stupid girls are taught silence
I wish I could find my inner patients but can’t spell the her into existence
I wish I were an editor but grammar is a forgotten foundation in an Athenian courtyard
I wish I could remember to respond to your emails regularly / but / the exhaustion of reading / the thirty minutes to move thoughts into coherent characters / recall conventions / follow conventions / believe I am worthy / have time to work through all of these steps / panic / get Ben to check the email just in case or under duress close my eyes and press send without a proofreader / the inflated balloon in my chest hurts too much and I have to lay down / by the next day I have forgotten you sent an email at all / there’s some new minor pain to read and respond to
I wish my daughter ease learning how to read but she’s two / it’s not reasonable to worry yet
I wish I kept my promises but this is about being a mother
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I have an endlessly growing stack of books next to my bedside table
(listen to the poem, read by the author)
This week my toddler
twisted the cap of the
Neosporin for the first
time. Neither of us read
right now, but this is about
me. I can’t get my brain to
process words on the page when
I’m tired. I’ve been more or less
tired for three years. There were
six weeks this summer and
three weeks last autumn when I
read, books between my fingers, then
sleep collapsed again like a house of
cards left jumbled on the table for
months. In my personal dictionary: tired
means reading only with my ears.
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About the Author
Sarah A. Shapiro is a neurodivergent, reading and writing disabled, poet and chocolatier based in Somerville, MA. Her chapbooks the bullshit cosmos (ignitionpress 2019) and being called normal (tall-lighthouse press 2021) work to bridge the gap between those who struggle to read and those who read with ease. Sarah’s latest work brings the ephemeral labor of parenting to the page.