Public Republic

Therése Halscheid

Photo: Kamen Ferdinandov

Yesterday my father greeted me
from another time ─

I was his sister,
and the day before that I was his wife,
tomorrow I might be his mother
or Aunt Mamie

and then, of course, there are moments
within those off-moments
when I am mistaken for someone
no longer alive, a person
he once knew

or perhaps I am only
a stranger in passing ─

and why I am telling you so,
is to share how
the longing to be myself
has come to mean being

alone

which is to say of these days that
I am now starving myself
in the attic.

Fourteen, too frail of a girl ─

too hard to rise with the body
into these hours

where the world continues with
no thoughts of me,
where I continue to be anything but
a child of his.