Where I’m From #6
By Tiffany Babb
Inspired by George Ella Lyon
I am from coffee grounds
From cheap maple syrup and Lipton tea bags
I am from the place where spiders hide
chaotic, loud-- where are you?
I am from dandelion blossoms
Heavy with pollen and waiting to travel
I'm from celery and onions
chopped so fine they're transparent,
From Eloisa and Chuyi
I'm from laughing too loud and loving too quiet
From "Close the gates so the wolf doesn't get in"
and "Yo mama wears combat boots"
I'm from creaking hymns playing on the radio
late into the night, sung by strange voices
from another time
I'm from the dry dirt of California
from airplanes and cars taking travelers
to places they've never been before,
new places, to start a life
Rich soup noodles,
crumbly potato chip cookies
From the stealing of a cake
from a wedding that had gone sour
The heavily permed hair of the eighties,
aging photos kept in a cracking plastic binder
of unremembered faces,
documents that have lost their meaning.
But we watch over them and preserve them,
knowing that although the faces are unremembered
and the documents have lost their meaning,
we cannot afford to lose more.
Where to find Tiffany:
Website: https://www.tiffanybabb.com/
Where to find Alyson:
Website: https://www.alysonshelton.com
Substack: https://whereimfrom.substack.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/byalysonshelton/
