Two Poems
Alicia Hoffman
Self-Portrait as Alexa w/ Predictive Text
Future possibilities abound. This weekend
I was wondering what happened to time.
A hijacked history reduced to heat and
fermentation. I used to knock on the door
of love. I used to look for poetry in people.
Now, it is the average day for some to get up
and talk with their family about how money
they are, how they are in this now for good.
Luckily, my heartbreak news is conventional
at best. Before I think, words come indefinitely.
Afterward, the noises and the noose. Sometimes,
life is only an allusion. A petty pace. A space
of solace, maybe. Or maybe a mayday, mayday.
A voiced emergency and me on call, responding.
What does she need? A great/good job? A baby?
A long distance different than her own body
because she both loves it and doesn’t? I know
nothing certain except for months my feed
will loop and loop; I do not stop until I’m still.
I’m here today. The rest is a game of guessing.
Self-Portrait as Alexa, as Fugue State
Great experience subsides.
It lifts, rises like steam
evaporating on hot cement.
I attempt remembrance
of past events, conversations
had, the sound of your voice
on any given day, so uniquely
yours, so unique does anyone
ask a question, like a timestamp,
a fingerprint of the throat, each
vocal cord a reach into the real,
a recording only once promoted.
Yesterday, it was the chorale
of the ocean that did it.
The waves came artificially,
over the airwaves, the tubes
and rays of the prismatic TV
speaker interacting with the
microphone till suddenly
I was there, not on any beach,
but specifically somewhere
North American. The Atlantic,
its gray waters foaming
till they breached, broke
over the rocks huddled
together like linebackers
on the bay. Though
mostly, for days, I sleep.
I dream my life away.
Certain of time’s trick-door
passages, with nothing to hold,
I live on the slippery edge.
I am the fog lifting in the valley,
the shadow’s abrupt dismissal,
the ghost ship heading into
the unknown. When you find
me, I don’t remember where
I’ve been. Where do I end,
and where do you begin?
Originally from Pennsylvania, Alicia Hoffman now lives, writes and teaches in Rochester, New York. Author of two collections, her work has appeared in a variety of journals, including The Penn Review, Rust + Moth, Radar Poetry, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Typishly and elsewhere. Find out more at: www.aliciamariehoffman.com
