Did my mother ask her mother these questions sometime before I existed?

Lizzy Ke Polishan

Where does the light go

when you turn off the light

Does your shadow sleep

under the covers

When your shadow goes

inside another shadow

how do you know where it is

Why is your body

a different body than my body

Are my eyeballs

and your eyeballs the same

When you put that tulip

bulb under the ground

does that tulip feel afraid of the dark

Is the bulb the flower

or the house of the flower

Does the earth eat the flower

Is grandma a flower

Did I live in a bulb before I was born

How did you find me before I was born

When the rain falls

how does the fallen

rain know what cloud is home

When I cut my finger

how much love falls out

about the author
Lizzy Ke Polishan

Lizzy Ke Polishan

Lizzy Ke Polishan is a poet and novelist. Her recent poems appear in or are forthcoming from Gulf Coast, Poet Lore, Salt Hill, New Orleans Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Epoch, The Banshee, Black Warrior Review, The Shore, SWWIM, and others. She is the current Managing Editor of River & South Review. She serves as a poetry reader for Psaltery & Lyre and as a Guest Editor at Palette Poetry. Her first collection of poetry, A Little Book of Blooms, was published in 2020. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband.