The new normal by Annie Stenzel

A building on X Street is gone now.

What did it look like, now that it is gone?

 

My memory for some things is excellent. 

For some things my memory is no good.

 

After those nights in the hospital, the doctors

were satisfied with my condition. Am I?

 

All those years in which I saw the body as a mere

vehicle to transport my mind to new places.

 

Now this: the body contains my eyes;

the eyes that harvest joy for my spirit.

 

The body contains my ears, eager to hear the song

of water as it rushes through an empty valley.

 

And the body contains a beating heart; these flutters

draw my hand to my chest like a magnet.

 

Write about me on a piece of paper, fold it

and then open it up. Is it blank again?

---

Annie Stenzel was born in Illinois, but has lived on both coasts and a couple of other continents at various times in her life. Her book-length collection, The First Home Air After Absence, was published last year by Big Table Publishing Co. Her poems appear in a wide range of print and online journals in the U.S. and the U.K., from Ambit to Rat's Ass Review to Whale Road Review, with many stops in between.