By: Alec Montalvo
My mother
never told
me
about
the stars
I guess
they didn’t matter
instead
she handed
me a spoon
and told me
to dig
I pushed
away
the smooth
and rounded
stones
that covered
the planter
in the garden
stuck
a utensil
into
the soil
filled
my mouth
with dirt
and seeds
now
whenever
I smile
for
a family portrait
I wish
a tomato
vine
would
drip
out
my
nostrils
coil
around
my throat
and tighten
like
a python
and for
a fig tree
to grow
from
out
my
mouth
and
knock
my head
back.
Alec Montalvo is an emerging poet. His work has previously appeared in Caesura, The Serpentine, and featured on the front page of PoetrySoup.com. He lives in Staten Island, New York and works in Brooklyn as a High School English Teacher where he teaches Creative Writing. He is currently pursuing his MFA in Poetry. He is also the guitarist and singer of the indie rock band, Good News for the Clovers.
"When I was a kid, I would often tell my mother whenever I was bored. One day I said it again, only this time, she responded with a story about when she was a young girl. She too once said, 'Mom, I’m bored' to her mother. Except, my nanna then pulled a serving spoon out of the kitchen drawer handed it to my mother and told her to go out in the backyard and dig. I found it very funny. But, it was the first time I heard a story about my mom’s childhood.
I decided to write a set of poems about what I learned from my family members. My nanna, is a devout Roman Catholic and it is no secret to anybody who meets her. I wrote the poem from my mother’s perspective of that day, incorporating biblical symbolism with allusion to the fig tree in the Garden of Eden. Additionally, the python also alludes to the serpent in the Garden. The poem expresses everything that comes along with religion and how beautiful and destructive it could be to someone."
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