Emma Stewart

Pata Poem

The textile section of Joanne’s Fabrics in Yuma
is everything I know about possibility
all these animals embroidered into scenes    rabbits on wicker furniture, patas tucked
neatly against the truth of their anatomy         having tea time with victorian ruffs 
around their scruffs, which are     extra folds of skin to protect their fancy necks 
from the dog jaw  
sometimes you kick yourself 
through another day     
sometimes you get someone else through theirs

i get through another day and at the doorway mom says        “clean your patas”        
until one day I refer to my patas and with surprise she says “no, people have pies!                  
animales tienen patas”

  tengo patas, mama, gimme mis patas, 
para ser animal, para nunca ser hija sola

I want those soft, quiet, pada-paws translated 
like carpet all over             my quiet life, full of fur and nothing words, 
the words I use when I don’t have any way to describe      how I’m full of these strange velvet
surges              for minutes pressing into my throat   like hours    spent trapped 
in a party  of rules I can’t make sense of the bend of a spine       susceptible to
breaking  when sat upright in a chair a neck   pressed in   on all sides         
screaming in itself   a word that I cannot find to say /I/ when /I/ is not the
protective scruff       or the collar    hiding it
/I/ am in my throat                  when I’m told to use my words 
I am using my words                I am not using yours
PATA                          PATA                             PATA                            PATA
all over the page,                    pata            pata                      pata
all over the couch,                      the chairs, 
the table, 
the idea of being human one way or another