Avriel Mejrah

Ephemeris (Mother)

My mother shuts her eyes
and the room lists—

not collapses, not tilts—
lists,

as if the house were only
a guess the body
keeps making.

She says the neighbor’s boat light
is Mars.

Not like Mars.

Mars.

A planet on a string.

Something red
caught and pulling.

I don’t correct her.

Correction is a language
that assumes a future.

I stand where her eyelids
almost open—

where thought sparks
and refuses the flame.

In her throat:
the dry hinge
of a door
that can’t decide

whether it’s meant
to open.

I want to oil the words—

make speech
move
without resistance.

But she’s already elsewhere,
naming by temperature:

lamp—what failed
at being sun,

spoon—
a cold moon
against the mouth,

me—
someone approaching
with a face
she is still testing.

Tonight she says my name
the way you read a label

not to remember
what’s inside

but to decide
whether to keep it.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Avriel Mejrah is a writer based in Massachusetts. His writing explores memory, transformation and refusing to name what prefers to be felt. He is currently working on a chapbook titled A Planet on a String.