Red lights on Mom's thighs,
I don't look. Dad dips his
hand into a bucket of ice,
crunches, smacks out between
icy lips how smart I am.
I called the wolves to my dirty
knees as a child, printed my
bedroom walls with the blood
of my ancestors. I beat out
a song to them nightly.
Deny my sex, my hair,
my pink skin, my parents,
my siblings, my acetone nails,
my face with the fake smile,
deny my race, my intelligence,
the talent that never belonged to me.
Mom told me that I could
do as I pleased, pinned bows
in my hair. Dad stirred mugs
of hot tea, left rings on the
kitchen table that my elbows
could not erase.
Pour over sh
As We Juggle the Weight of Grief
I watch you chop off a chicken's head in your skivvies
I stand at the kitchen window,
coated in silk and body cream.
I know you'll look, axe poised over dark head, and see me:
embarrassed or body flushed with need.
My fingernails hit the Formica countertop
in one, steady beat,
and it reminds me of Saturday mornings
spent baking in this kitchen
while our son held a toy gun in his weak fist:
bang bang to the television set.
I'd leave him in elephant P.J.s,
crusty mustache, and rancid breath.
I gave birth to him in this house,
fed him milk from my breast,
and you held us here.
Your
You know you'll stick yourself in that Mason jar then wave at celery sticks that hop by. You'll wiggle into vinegar, cross your fingers and hope you preserve every pinch that used to be worth something. You'll cover your eye sockets with creased palms that will beg you to let them work. Work. Work. Work. The air is stiff in here and you're afraid. Your ears curl in while the old, beautiful mare you used to own neighs in her stall. Don't let go. Don't let go.
Lidocaine fell into my jugular three days ago, now it's congealed in the lining of my uterus where experimentalists claim the
woman's soul is chained. My mother once asked me, "What is it that I do to make you hate me?" Mush mouth and the spike in my heel kept me from answering. I haven't seen her in seven years. I'm bleeding. From where,
I don't know. I just wake up every morning in a puddle and question the possibility of me not dying. The consensus says this town has more women than men. It lies:
I saw the mayor in his thousand dollar suite. What your mother will never tell you is that being young hurts. You'll choose a road that has br
[Whoever I Am]
wilted lungs sit behind my breasts, ready to be cooked in tomorrow's surprise stew,
yet I can't give them up and I can't bring them back to life
dad says that they will heal one day so I can speak once more and all it takes is time and for the hair on my top lip to sprout again and these drugs bottled in my stomach to explode and maybe, just maybe, for you to come back
[whoever you are]
blowing smoke in the alleyways, setting a line of fire down my ribs and making my toes stick in various places where I can be close to you and these illegitimate children we will have will love us
[whoever they are]
finishing sentences
Red lights on Mom's thighs,
I don't look. Dad dips his
hand into a bucket of ice,
crunches, smacks out between
icy lips how smart I am.
I called the wolves to my dirty
knees as a child, printed my
bedroom walls with the blood
of my ancestors. I beat out
a song to them nightly.
Deny my sex, my hair,
my pink skin, my parents,
my siblings, my acetone nails,
my face with the fake smile,
deny my race, my intelligence,
the talent that never belonged to me.
Mom told me that I could
do as I pleased, pinned bows
in my hair. Dad stirred mugs
of hot tea, left rings on the
kitchen table that my elbows
could not erase.
Pour over sh
As We Juggle the Weight of Grief
I watch you chop off a chicken's head in your skivvies
I stand at the kitchen window,
coated in silk and body cream.
I know you'll look, axe poised over dark head, and see me:
embarrassed or body flushed with need.
My fingernails hit the Formica countertop
in one, steady beat,
and it reminds me of Saturday mornings
spent baking in this kitchen
while our son held a toy gun in his weak fist:
bang bang to the television set.
I'd leave him in elephant P.J.s,
crusty mustache, and rancid breath.
I gave birth to him in this house,
fed him milk from my breast,
and you held us here.
Your
You know you'll stick yourself in that Mason jar then wave at celery sticks that hop by. You'll wiggle into vinegar, cross your fingers and hope you preserve every pinch that used to be worth something. You'll cover your eye sockets with creased palms that will beg you to let them work. Work. Work. Work. The air is stiff in here and you're afraid. Your ears curl in while the old, beautiful mare you used to own neighs in her stall. Don't let go. Don't let go.
Lidocaine fell into my jugular three days ago, now it's congealed in the lining of my uterus where experimentalists claim the
woman's soul is chained. My mother once asked me, "What is it that I do to make you hate me?" Mush mouth and the spike in my heel kept me from answering. I haven't seen her in seven years. I'm bleeding. From where,
I don't know. I just wake up every morning in a puddle and question the possibility of me not dying. The consensus says this town has more women than men. It lies:
I saw the mayor in his thousand dollar suite. What your mother will never tell you is that being young hurts. You'll choose a road that has br
the letters you wrote and erased on the mirror come back after I take a shower. I move the mirrors to face the east
where the sun rises; you are hemingway. you have one foot in the door and the other in my mouth. your shoes have not been shined in years, since the man in the train station died: fifty cents and you
can greet your daughter with her own reflection. the fog in the mirrors blurs my face. my algebra homework always sits undone: x equals y, you say, which equals z and the milkman will still try to fuck your wife. the milkman
quit his job decades ago, sour air following him, and hemingway and his four wives are dead. y