Poetry, Kathryn Reese

Stim

The alphabet is an instrument and she’s in the kitchen strumming  “Coco banana!”

as she goes about breakfast. All the buzz—a whirlpool of milk, cocoa, banana

vanilla, cinnamon, honey smeared on the bench. She’s gone into improv—

doesn’t need the conductor. Just stage crew to clean or pass her cocoa, banana

cinnamon cinnamon honey no mango banana pushed through a sieve 

the lumps pushed from her mouth, the fruit pushed through her fist, banana

all we did right—and even     that pushed into the underside of the red tray table

and abandoned.         She made a bridge: coco-coco-coco-banana

peels to the sky. A whirlpool of milk. The buzz. The breakfast. The honey 

the honey the honey, the love. The incorrect proportions: cinnamon, cocoa, banana

The sludge.                                           The quiet part. 

What can’t be said, the alphabet, the instruments, the broken strings. The reason (banana)

we can’t enter that room (banana) the cocoa marshmallow the soothing 

the strumming. The long note. Banana.