Nazar To Protect Against Forgetting

The memory of my father is broken
just like the left dial of his lathe,
which cuts and smooths the rough edges
of metal. Now I sit on the big rock
across the street, staring into the garage.
Inside, I am thirteen, on top of the washer,
watching the steel shavings fly. I feel
a breeze move my hair on my ear.
Something tonight sounds altered,
a daffodil dancing in my father’s voice.
The moonlight kisses its yellow petals
to the ground, where it mixes with filings
like ashes stirring up from dirt.

***

Dark Deer

Poets, like the blind, can see in the dark.
.              — Jorge Luis Borges

My neighbors are deer.
Their skittish nature keeps them
shadowed in the grass.
I can see their antlers
on my walls at night,
each one full of wonder.
We make eye contact
and run from it.
Deer never let me pet them.
Their hides are rough
like brooms, they sweep through
spaces and leave.
I was a deer once.
I was afraid and hid in the trees
with the dead fathers
who watch us from a distance.
I see them in the dark,
still, staying.

***

Maddison Taylor is currently studying writing at Woodbury University and lives in Los Angeles. In 2018-19, she served both as Literature Editor and Social Media Curator for MORIA Literary Magazine and has an interview with the poet Reuben Ellis published in Athena. You can find her on Instagram @to_infinity_and_be_blond.