EMILY WALLIS HUGHES / 4 POEMS
I’M REMINDED OF ENFORCED CONSENSUS AND FERVENT BLINDNESS
This state now has a state lichen
Hey look right over there
Look at that pomeranian eating carrots
Tell yourself no, no no to every other image
You see you let yourself be told what to do
Instead of listening to the insects born with you
And to the insects born inside of you
Yes you're not blind anymore
Yes you're free to listen to the image
of that bird perched
on the lichen-covered
branch of an oak
consumed by disease
I DON’T REMEMBER
I’m in the square.
Plaza, the first word that came to mind.
Why didn’t I
write plaza?
What is this border, and this one?
I don't remember this fence. And it is not
weathering well.
When am I West?
When was I, am I, East?
I admit I am not sure —
I want some kind of new natural
feminine way, but for now
I walk as a flâneuse, wondering at what the answer could be,
and a man I wish were here tonight
calls to remind me
he is all directions at once.
And Mother reminds
the city is good for you.
MORE APPLE BLOSSOMS WILL TURN
I read Du Fu to my mother
I follow her out to the patio
She waters the potted plants
Some questions we ask too often
She speaks to me in German
translated into English
I think and I paint this way
My teachers did not understand
Thank goodness for the rain
This year I hope
more apple blossoms
will turn to fruit
ON THE PHONE WITH MOM IN BROOKLYN, A DOOR TO VALLE DE LA LUNA OPENS
From the backyard garden in the Valley of the Moon
as we call it in English, after what the Spaniards called it, after
what the Miwok and Pomo called it, better translating they say
to many moons, now this lifetime archetype
in my unconscious, on the phone with mom:
shelled beans, cut up carrots she says
I cook the broth again with some onion skin
I put some thyme in it
a use for those beans too hard to eat now
If you parboil the kale
it won't thin your blood so much
I forget what kind of soup it is
We forget
British movies
I called back to hear
the last half of what
you were saying
your last sentence
I'll mail you some California
bay laurel leaves
There are so many
growing still, despite...
Her voice trails off
as I lose reception
Emily Wallis Hughes grew up in Agua Caliente, California, a small town in the Sonoma Valley. These poems are in the manuscript of her second full-length book. Emily is the author of Sugar Factory, published in 2019 by Spuyten Duyvil. You can read her poems in Berkeley Poetry Review, Blazing Stadium, Elderly, Prelude, and many other literary magazines. Emily teaches undergraduate creative writing courses as an adjunct instructor at Rutgers University–New Brunswick in New Jersey. She and Jason Zuzga are the editorial directors of Fence. You can read more about her work at emilywallishughespoetry.com.