I have my grandmother’s eyes. Transitively, maybe my grandmother’s mind
has already spread up to my forehead, seized each living brain cell. Maybe
the absence is already there, waiting to pounce. When I forget my wallet
or lose a dollar bill, I cannot help remembering her picking up a cup
and asking what it is. I cannot help thinking these things are unrecoverable.
I think of her forgetting how to cook, then where her kitchen is. I cry. I’ll lose
it all one day, if it’s not lost already. The keys, the cards, the morning before
she first forgot.
Daniel Blokh is a 16-year-old American writer of Russian-Jewish descent, living in Birmingham, Alabama. He is the author of the memoir In Migration (BAM! Publishing 2016), the micro-chapbook The Wading Room (Origami Poems Project 2016), and the chapbook Grimmening (forthcoming from Diode Editions). His work has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing awards and the Foyle Young Poet awards, and has appeared in DIALOGIST, the Blueshift Journal, Cleaver, Gigantic Sequins, Forage Poetry, Avis Magazine, Thin Air Magazine, Cicada Magazine, and more. He works as an editor at Parallel Ink and a reader at the Adroit Journal. He should probably go play outside with his friends, but he’s busy worrying about the results of his writing submissions.
–Art by Nicu Buculei
