Karen Lepri
CREATIVE CLOUD
Inspiration is a luxury
says the Post
Wish I knew all those years ago the big lap
I lay upon
before becoming the lap
the abettor of another's ease
another's fount of amazement
From the carseat she spouts sellable lyrics
out of nowhere
or out of her doubling amygdala
taylor-esque, sure, but fully "orig"
Meanwhile I dig into a place with a sign on the wall: "fresh out"
out of ideas
out of time
out of breath
always needed in multiple somewheres
a triple-planed existence plied alternately by the child, the baby inside me, and
some semblance of a self
mostly composed
of histamines.
I tell everyone I've switched genres
no longer text-based
just flesh and affect and poop.
Has to be some techne in it all–
the article says don't wait for it
so I dig
I won't describe this except to say
the clayful dirt kept falling into the hole
where we wanted to plant the bleeding heart
My daughter about to lose it as the plant changes
from a mobile potted thing to a permanent earthly one
and so full of concern, why mama
why does it only have one flower now?
Me trying to convince her that plants want to live in the ground
not intending any metaphors
still I pant and make it happen
WHAT I’M DOING NOW
while others are writing their books
I hold the Frida doll that turns inside out and becomes a pot of flowers
make her make mistakes as she reads
mistakes are hilarious
my daughter clearly knows
her record in language having gone from nonsense to sense and back again
the point is never to repeat what she says as she says it
what would be the role of totalitarian play
in the book she has memorized
one right sided man named buttercup
tries to convince the upside down character to get to town the regular way
in the logic of childhood
of course he ends up going her way
the whole kingdom realizes the value of walking on your hands
and maybe this is what I'm doing
deep in parenthood
unable to "really write"
maybe I am writing upside down
maybe that's what teaching anyone to read is after all
a lesson in exception
in the unpredictable way of language
in all the reasons why we give up on rules
and crawl under the bed to play
Karen Lepri is the author of Incidents of Scattering (Noemi, 2013). Her work has appeared in 6x6, Boston Review, Chicago Review, Conjunctions, Lana Turner, and elsewhere. She teaches writing at NYU.
