Tia Factor, Flow, 2014 (Artist Website, Instagram)
Oil paint, collage, and acrylic ink on wood panel
5” x 7”
trees and waters no longer appear in my dreams
only medicines of a modern world
tubes, needles, red neon flashing
you don’t have to warn me
I tell myself, I already know.
still I rub the remainder together,
lay the sticks, speak an ogham.
I’m looking for my daughter
in an abandoned city. I can jump buildings
and shattered glass doesn’t hurt at all
but there is only metal and cement
nothing, no one, alive
she wakes me, the warm, real her
pushing the pillow off my head and tangling my hair
in her hands, I keep crying, shift
to wrap her like an overturned oak, fathom of earth
in its rooted fist, alive or not alive, gripping always
what it can’t ungrip.