Two Poems by Maya Gilbert

 

Home is where the heart…exists 

 

TW: Trauma, Marital difficulties 

 

As I say this, I imagine two cysts in my ovaries leaping sideways— 

a soft, curveball-style motion to remind me I'm still alive  

yawning in a grave 

surrounded by angels hula-hooping on Copacabana, 

typing my name on a Windows 98 computer 

since God forgot to update the register while I was busy 

hurling a racket with two shuttles instead of one, 

missing the mark with both. 

 

              And then he comes… 

 

shows me his scars, doesn't ask for a bandage— 

but I give him one anyway, 

my fingers bleeding, no metaphors this time. 

A few drops fall on my skin 

picked and disappear before 

I hold his hand. 

"We'll go far," I tell myself more than him. 

But midway, I lose 

 

the way 

& try to find another shuttle,  

another racket – 

Not that it was shiny or that I needed it 

but to breathe—the ground had been too suffocating 

 

& i instantly became an infidel… 

 

I worked to earn bread for home; 

he played games—not because he’s insensitive  

but 'cause he, too, was drowning 

like myself…or 

Less  

perhaps…. 

but I failed 

to peddle the tide. 

 

Tried to start anew, 

held his hand back, his therapist-delusional: 

wife-gone-came-back beads of a necklace too broken to be held together, 

for a promise:  

we, both orphans, would 

will  

stay together— 

without home, without a to-do list,  

swallowing black syrups of depression: 

two children trying not to make scrunched-up faces when they taste bitter medicine. 

 

We even chalked our names on saintly barks of trees as Buddhas of a parallel universe 

on blackboards with a different chalk each time for symbolism: 

wrote "I'm here for you," with white  

"Let's build this together," with green 

"Please seek therapy," with yellow 

"We can do it together,” with red 

but no color or shape helped: 

pearls refused to bind,  

bushes gave away our location 

sun eclipsed our shadow 

& blood froze in time where we first met. 

 

But we chose to live together— 

he, for lack of a home, 

and I, in search of one. 

                                        It’s a relationship 

still… 

until the word forgets to exist. 

 

 

 

The Fractal Rainbow 

Rainbow^rainbow vs rainbow, 
Divided by rainbow, multiplied by rainbow— 
Power rainbow times ten. 
The power x of a rainbow is a rainbow 
because a rainbow has colours, and if you multiply those colours by x, 
you might see them fading out, 
turning into black and white— 
which are also technically colours 
and also light. 

Imagine light passing through the rainbow of rainbows, 
like a woman in pink, transparent lingerie, 
looking at herself in the mirror, 
talking to herself, thinking it’s her— 
but it’s really not her, only a reflection 
of the images she sees in the mirror, 
looking back at her like a woman in stilettos, 
proudly wearing a crimson crown 
with blood spilling like red rivulets 
or a fractal pattern of red-tipped thumb pins 
on a green thumb board in the classroom. 

She stands, 
& zhe walks, 
& xhe eats, 
& she finds herself 
in the shadows created by reflections, 
which she calls images because they don’t talk, see, or feel— 
like a Good Friday that just comes and goes, 
or a hamburger served piping hot. 
& the harshness of truth, 
both black & white.

By Maya Gilbert