I Could Say I Come From by Elizabeth Cohen |

“I Could Say I Come From” by Elizabeth Cohen

I could say I come
from dust, from rocks

Potatoes, centuries of bloody
fingers, tatting lace

I could say I come a thousand years
wandering in a desert

Russian steppes, pograms
death camps, bone yards

I could say I come
from candles

reversed mirrors
glasses of wine

I could say I come from
a Purple heart, moldy feet

in the jungles of the Philippines
from decoded enemy messages

crossword puzzles, recipes for soup
I could say I come from laundry

washed in a bathtub in Cleveland,
the American labor movement

I could say I come from heat
I could say I come from ice

all these things are true
but opening my heart’s book, I say

I come from 8209 A Guadalupe Trail
the place I lost and grew teeth

planted striped zucchini
climbed a rickety windmill

learned a Torah parsha,
buried dogs, cats, generations

of chickens, one goat,
infinite goldfish

I come from a small sanctuary
under a fallen tree on the irrigation ditch

where I came to see every person
under a tree is drinking shade

every person is water
feeding a tree

I’m from the nectar
of Guadalupe Trail

from long thin scratches
from Russian Olives

an invasive species introduced
in the late 1800s, run wild

that’s me, an imported
barefoot wild girl

swung many dozen times
over that ditch on a knotted rope

we are all the places we began
and if you leave and return

you might even walk someday
on top of your own footprints

you might hear distant barking
from across the decades

of that last dog
crushed by a hit-and-run on 4th Street

still calling for you
to save her

Elizabeth Cohen Artist Statement:

As a creative woman, I define my creative identity in the following way:

Building writerly community.
Mentoring other writers, specifically memoirists.
Following the muse of place.

What does my writing/art mean to me?

Identity. Life focus
Literary philanthropy.

These are my writing goalposts and compasses.

I Could Say I Come From by Elizabeth Cohen