i use google more than i care to admit | Jessica Hudson
as bluelight stereo / pixelated dictionary / define coruscate / as tree of knowledge / branches laden with every contortion of fruit / i am so curious / unlike my youngest brother / who never read himself into more than basketball & finances / we don’t talk often / my favorite movies are the ones with women in the title / films split into chapters / i feel the equivalent of marking the fifth box across & yelling bingo / when i can recall the name of that one actor in that one movie / without begging the internet to sherlock it out for me / feels like memory more & more these day is an unlearned skill / yet we pity the elderly for losing theirs / perhaps lost isn’t the right word if what is lost / amazing grace lyrics / can be found by listening to a song / i tell my mother not to call herself old / languid lazy retired yes / word for beauty that doesn’t sound pretty / but not old please not yet / the phrase there’s a spirit in man comes to mind suddenly / some apostle’s quote the teen elders read to me / the last time i walked too slowly past the latter-day saints church / i wonder what words those boys google / how to keep a wife / their faces smooth & soft / not yet whispered or wrinkled or wiry / they look like my brother did in high school / wrists pale, chests narrow / scriptured breaths hardly filling their pressed shirts / Book of Mormon the musical / two thousand year old words impressed in the same place behind their foreheads that lights up in mine when I recall a poem I memorized in grade school / map of every residence within walking distance / they pressed those words on me when i paused / hesitation mistaken for agreement / the mulberry tree outside our kitchen already in sight / berries dotting the ground like pixels squashed blue / my mother once sang me songs of love & sheep / for now i’ll let that be my definition of heaven / something to look forward to when i can’t / thank google / remember anyone’s name
About the Author:
Jessica Hudson (she/her) received her MFA in Creative Writing from Northern Michigan University. Her work has been published in DIAGRAM, New Delta Review, Quarterly West, and elsewhere. She lives in Albuquerque.