Poem of the Week

Ceremony

Julieta Caldas

It was a dream of an Easter lunch

A lamb walking up the aisle.

It was a road without end

And the backs of the seats play movies.

Or something about a swimming pool full of rain–

Didn’t we jump in once? Does anyone care?

Barely, save me who barely remembers.

But it’s true, he drove the truck thru the storm

And picked me up.

It was one limit case of the free-for-all

To come across that and then sleep for a very long time.

He invented boiled eggs for me.

The cat was a tiny baby.

Don’t you believe me about that?

Don’t you forget me?

The Yale Review · “Ceremony” by Julieta Caldas

how did this poem begin for you?

It started with the jealous, warm, sickly feeling I get from the suburbs as seen on TV—from the way drama renews itself endlessly against the comfortable, comforting backdrop of the suburbs’ perpetual present. Something always happens; one thing always leads to another, which isn’t true in the same way in the real world. On TV, everyone is exactly inside of their lives. This was about remembering or imagining what it’s like to be inside of something when you’re currently not.

Julieta Caldas is a writer living in London. Her poems appear in Hotel and New Papers and her pamphlet along upon the ground was published by the Aleph Press in 2021. Her other writing appears in Sidecar, Jacobin, and TANK.

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