I Don’t Remember Changing My Name to Microwave | Eloise Schultz

2 mins read

after Hanif Abdurraqib

but I remember how it felt to be perfectly contained / beside my mom in bed / tucked into her soft t-shirt / while she wrapped around me / pulled me into warmth & breath /although these impressions have shifted / with frequent remembering / a circular maneuver / not unlike the operation of a microwave oven / which provokes molecules / forcing them into continuous alignment / with a shifting electric field / & also like a microwave / my memory has a tendency to superheat / beyond its boiling point / the surface unchanged / until touch / triggers explosion / this trait is consistent with the function of containers / to insulate their contents / as observed by my mother who said / what a perfect container for a snake / watching a man carry a ball python down the street in a Tupperware / if you ask me / there’s an ideal container for everything / the poem is a perfect example / with its slanted pulses / that convulse / shudder / & detonate / the safest shapes / don’t ask me how / a name / can blow fuses / can rattle / the dimension between being & becoming / look no further / than the python / which coils when threatened / & pretends to be a sphere / in other words / even a creature that lives on constraint / knows when to make itself containable 


Eloise Schultz is an MFA candidate in poetry at Oregon State University. Her writing can be found in Terrain and Under A Warm Green Linden. She lives on Mount Desert Island with several housemates and a dog named Fire Truck.