Poem of the Week: 6.1.23

"Wasps I have eaten thinking they were figs" (Part 2/3)

This week’s poem is the second part of a longer poem. Click here to read Part 1.

WASPS I HAVE EATEN THINKING THEY WERE FIGS

by Ricky Novaes de Oliveira

From a yellow bus, kids run to playground
Talking about Deuteronomy  
One lags behind, teetering 
On the planter’s edge 
She kicks as if to trust

***

Please remind me
how—to you
—I opened up so
wide, these walls
that tower—now echo
When I only want the rain to pass

***

Is riding in the backseat fading luxury
Is being angry in the bathroom 
and dragging your feet 
and burning out

Is trying while waiting another
Is a static moment while the rain 
falls on your body 
to touch the earth

Is feeling alright alright
Is the end of this song a birdsong

Is laughing while crying between 
or about
Is resolution too hopeful 
a rhyming

***

Gas station mecca
On Christmas Eve

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Thank you for reading the Poem of the Week! Wishing you a happy first day of June.

“Wasps I have eaten thinking they were figs” is a long(er than I usually write) poem that I am breaking into three parts. While the first part of this poem considers what it means to reach without fully grasping, this second part explores the opposite: what happens when we reach for more with hands too full. What happens is frustration—the little girl “kicks” against what was made before her, not sure what to “trust.” What happens is reeling and realizing—the broken lines still form a thread between “me” and “you” that won’t dissipate. What happens is asking questions we already know the answer to—or asking questions that are answers themselves. 

To me, “Wasps…” is a poem of growing up. Trying to make sense of a childhood that bleeds into adolescence until it has spread enough, leaving the young adult left to understand the dried cracks and lingering stains. For me, the final couplet of this part of the poem puts this confusing mess of self-creation into tangible terms. “Christmas Eve” has always been a time of family and rest, and as I get older it’s one of the things that makes me feel like a kid again. But I found myself a few years ago breaking from my familiar traditions, going out with friends instead of staying in with family, and suddenly becoming aware of my estrangement to myself in a Shell gas station parking lot. Along with everyone else there, too.

All this abstraction is to say I’m still figuring it out. This poem, growing up, what to do, what to do. Let me know if you figure it out, or if you’re still figuring it out, too.  

Alright, Ricky