When my ancestors began the work of me, I was already old. I was only a child, I swam as an eel, I tallied on fingers, measuring everything. I learned everything, forgot everything, made nothing matter. Consequences gathered over my several springs, over and over, winter bit into the possibilities. My ancestors took a great bite of me, but on I swam, floating, a wiring of bones, reaching out to salvage. I was a little boat. I rowed the bright river. I ran aground, I walked ashore, I stood upright, I rushed into the mysteries of childhood. Who dreamed me? My ancestors wander just behind me. They harp: What’s your name? Who calls you? No one calls me by the name I chose. The name I can’t remember. It’s the body that remembers, but the body never speaks. Tell us your name, plead my ancestors. We cannot live without you. My name? My name? I still don’t know. To call myself this given name would be the same as lying.
Ginny Threefoot’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Bennington Review, Caliban, dusie: the tuesday poem, Guest11, Guesthouse, Poet Lore, Tupelo Quarterly, and Zone 3. Her poetry has also been exhibited in collaboration with artist Anne Lindberg at Carrie Secrist Gallery in Chicago and Haw Contemporary in Kansas, City, MO. They are preparing another exhibition that will open at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, IA, in September, 2022.
