Cate Root is a poet in New Orleans. Find more of her work at cateroot.online.
WE MAKE ENDLESS ERRORS AND OTHER POEMS
march 25, 2024dedication:
These are poems dedicated both to the memory of my mother and a dear friend who helped in my grief
Once driving to dinner I saw a hazed-out low sun and mistook the solar system
Another time I chased the moon across a bridge, gaping awe, and made it to my destination
Asked others if they’d seen it—told them they could still catch it
—who could lose the moon?—I was wrong, like I am about so many things, who loves me and why
I must learn to approach the wrong with gentle curiosity
I waited as long as I could to let the wrong into this poem because I knew it would ring here forever
Timeless mix-ups and embarrassments and a touch of shame all in one bell
Wrong wrong wrong I have loved the wrong people taken the off path wasted my potential
A poet’s education in suffering and silliness—so many variations on playing the fool
Losing the moon—as if I had never been in a star field suffocated by clouds—
Freedom inevitable, shine on standby—it is an error
To believe that only what can be captured exists
WE MAKE ENDLESS ERRORS
Ice melting I’m self conscious about my smell
Am I covered in grit or is my sheen unappetizing
Shucked, unsucked, I died and now I’m just a snotty thing
Mucked
SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE AN OYSTER LEFT ON THE TRAY
I tell my friend that I invent my own calendar
I try to say more, but I’m so in love with his hair
Every day is the anniversary of what came before
I am constantly counting
To calm down, to fall asleep, to pass the time I’m pacing
A year ago I came home from a long, hard trip and the AC was broken
Ninety degrees inside in October, a mild hell compared
To what would come after
I am trying to say more, but I’m not who I was
I foolishly thought myself done with rites: no marriage, no children
I had to spin so much fantasy to try to avoid the story unspooling
During those years outside reality, too blurred and too sharp, the last moments
Of my mother’s life were too painful; they broke my time
I thought I might come back to my friend’s hair
Sometimes I love someone immediately and then I have
To figure out how to make them love me, too
Make them love me so much that it’s appropriate
To pet their hair or cradle their face
I wanted this poem to be more
Than all the others I wrote in love with an idea
A jawline, a placeholder for how good it felt
To be still loved by my living mom, even far away,
Even in pain, and then to be here, sitting across a table
Enamored, lucky, for every soul that will still love me after
Here is the new bit: I am looking forward to the anniversary of
When I knew I’d be ok
THIS IS A MEMORY ABOUT NOW AND THEN
Cate Root is a poet in New Orleans. Find more of her work at cateroot.online.