Living Room (TQ Sims - New Orleans, LA)

Stuck in the grooves of my brain
It occasionally raises its voice to say
“Why carry me?”

I respond the way she did
When gay rights activists
Marched on the noon news.
She looked across the table
With knowing in her eyes and
Said to me, “everybody needs
Love.”

The smell of my Mamaw’s living room,
The nice room where there is no t.v.
Only décor and seating and scent,
The room we never go in
But I go in all the time

Vinyl furniture,
Aged potpourri,
Wood polish,
Dust, probably mold,
And if you lift the lid of the dish
Where at the bottom all the striped discs
Are stuck together,
Peppermint

I don’t stay long because
We don’t go in the nice living room
And because she died after I’d gone
I only needed to be
Where no one—
Not even I—go
For a moment

To breathe in her nice room
So I could carry it with me

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