GPS TO MY CHILDHOOD HOME
by Devorah Levy-Pearlman
turn left at the light / palm readers get a military discount at the cockroach hotel my dad
stays at / another sunday cockfighting at the blackstone auto body shop / easier to find
auto parts here than a functioning two-wheel drive / a teenager sells week-old roses in
the el pollo loco parking lot / he is far from home, from a bowl of real menudo / on
ashland you’ll see the new seafood fusion, a yemenite buffet, a temp agency, a tire shop
and that ethiopian place we used to go to / i can’t believe the nickel arcade is still open
and the store that only sells sewing machines / since i’ve left, they approved zoning for a
cannabis dispensary on gettysburg / a Nigerian strip mall church called mountain of fire
/ at indianapolis before the wienerschnitzel-pawn shop intersection, make a left, go
three blocks then right/now you can buy dog cbd treats next to the neighborhood fire
station / parallel to the reservoir where my grandmother always kept birdseed in the
trunk of the car / now another left, slowly now, beware of the massive bump the city
erected to help, i think, with drainage though it hardly ever rains, except last spring.
Devorah Levy-Pearlman (she/her) is a poet, essayist, and community organizer raised in California and living in New Orleans. She writes out of a compulsion to detect the fine, subtle frequencies humming under the surface of everything, especially familial mythology, grief, placehood, and belonging. She likes to write on long train rides, in cheap motels, and with her cat on her lap.