Read it. Let your eyes grow lazy on long stanzas, let them skip to the last line, or the line that says “Taco Bell” because you actually were just eating a crunch-wrap and you thought this poem was about grief. Confuse yourself. Read it again. It’s stranger than you think.
Underline all the words you have never heard before. Don’t use a dictionary. You don’t need their meaning here, just as long as you can string a sentence. Consider their comparisons; their dialectic capacity. Decide what you want the words to say and make the poem mean it.
Use an encyclopaedia and see the places the poet packaged their mother in Mesopotamian mythology and protozoa. Ok, now use a dictionary. We call color by their names (phthalo blue yellow ochre) but the words alone won’t make you see it.
But how do the words feel in your chest? Notice the knot in your neck when you read the line about time. Thank the poem for how it unravels the tension you didn’t know was already there.
Listen to the line breaks — the em dashes; the poem’s holes; nothing is more real than words. Take a deep breath and remember the last time you did not say what you meant.
Return to the title. Do you know now what the poem’s about? Did the title lie to you or tell you gently to read the story just differently enough? What does a name say about who you are — how to read you?
Read it again, out loud. A little alliteration goes a long way. Read it slowly so the vowels sound like prayer. Read it quickly so your lips beat like bongo drums. Pace yourself. Read the commas.
Read the poem on stage, at a karaoke bar. Read it on the plane, on the loudspeaker, while you wait on the tarmac and everyone cheers. Pretend to be a substitute teacher and read it in your old kindergarten classroom. Shout the poem at your husband to prove he doesn’t listen. Whisper the poem in his ear and hope he hears it.
Check in with your poem. You have known each other long now but she is not the same as she once was. Neither are you. Grow old together.
Tape the poem to your bathroom mirror, the poem that reminds you of yourself. Write a letter to the poet and ask where they found your reflection. Ask if they liked writing your poem, or if they disliked keeping it in.
Circle the sentences you would’ve written differently. Can you tell where the poet was raised, or if their father loved them or how much? Can you tell if they went to undergrad, and if that is where they learned how to write, how to be published?
This poem traveled a long way to you. Do you know who posted it on what app, who bound the hardcover? Do you know who lived this poem? It is okay to be a visitor in someone else's pain. Consider why you got to read this poem. Consider why you had to.
Pretend the poem is yours. Take all the words and rearrange them. Say the same thing back, like a game of telephone. We are more alike than you think.
Write a poem about the poem. Make the war metaphor about your best friend, kind of. Throw it in the trash and bless the can. Start again. It will get good once it’s about you and also everyone.
Take your love, your guilt, the second time you rode on the back of your babysitter’s bicycle. Type up the unfinished product and wrap it in a bow. Give it to her. Tell her: see step one.
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