Mind Reading
By Juan Pablo Mobili
I became a mind reader while still a kid
specializing on my mother and my father
since I began to wonder if she thought
he was a failure, or he believed
he should’ve remained a bachelor.
My father was the hardest to read,
a bramble of images, churning out poems
in his bedroom as cryptic as his counsel.
With my mother, the trick was to avoid
the distraction of her myriad of animated faces,
trying to learn why she smoked alone
in a corner of our tiny kitchen.
I could never tell for sure if they were
irremediably different, or their longings
were twins who were raised far from each other,
but every time I thought I knew what
they were thinking, my certainty stumbled
like a puppy in the dark.
Their love for each other that,
among other things, conceived me
remained a riddle, but
their love for my brother and me,
was clear as a clear sky.
By the time I was in high school,
I gave up stalking their thoughts.
Their mystery always won.
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Juan Pablo Mobili was born in Buenos Aires, and adopted by New York. His poems appeared in The American Journal of Poetry, Hanging Loose Press, South Florida Poetry Journal, Louisville Review, The Wild Word (Germany), and Otoliths (Australia), among others. His work received multiple nominations for the Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net. His chapbook, “Contraband,” was published in 2022. Most recently he was the Guest Editor for the Spring 2023 issue of the Banyan Review.
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