poetry by nicolò potestà

31/PUSHING

my sister’s favorite number is 31.
31 days in a long month.
31, the age our mother was
when she birthed my sister,
i was waiting at home, her
breathing hard pushing
wet womb out the hard way
bracing for the bridge,
the crying, the pink mush
of a newborn’s face finding
the right way to sob,
to suckle, my mom’s damp hair
stuck to her forehead, still panting.
31 is a new beginning,
fresh start. new cycle. it pushes
her forwards, running, always running,
as an athlete does, kicking up
turf, bright green plastic, running,
waiting for her turn to run,
waiting for the right time
to push her legs harder, through
soreness and the cut
carved muscles move just
like they’re supposed to
over and over again.

PORTAL

Today, I found myself blowing out
candles, walking around my childhood home
naked, quickly, wishing I had a
towel or a shirt to cover up with, something
to make the transition a little less
harsh, needing some sort of
direction to I start walking, feeling
with one hand the middle wall of the house
like I did when I was learning how to
walk, moving in circles through
the living room to the hallway, through
the doorway to the kitchen and I see
old dreams here, in my first dog’s water
bowl, through the little windows
in the back door, in the reflection of the bath
room mirror which I caught a glimpse of
and the smell of English Breakfast tea wafts
through the house, yellowing my teeth
and I know the house, know the layout
as I stick to the left wall and yet I can’t
quite place what happened here, can’t
differentiate the dreams from my memories,
can’t see the different shades of
reality in those red chairs like red berries
in the palm of my hand even though
we evolved for this, and was the TV
still there or had it been stolen
already, stolen like something else
I hold so dear, tell me, is there something
left to find here besides old bones, are there
clues to my history or just fabricated
distractions from the realness of it all and I
look down and realize I’m still
not wearing any clothes.