By Michelle Lewis
The thing about my mother is I don’t think
you understand cramhole, I don’t think you understand back into.
The thing is take the scissors to bed.
Is what kind of man puts candy in a dish that isn’t candy but just mints.
The kind of man she’s with
while I’m home, on a farm. I am eleven
and all this seems like brave but really it is breaking.
The thing about my mother is between the flowers of the wallpaper
I have written tiny words
and jiminy it is a garden of the body.
Of crotch and rub and feel me up. So far apart
no one could know they even say.
All this seems like succor, when it is really suck her.
The thing about my mother is I don’t think
you understand alone in this acreage of dark
where I listen in on the party line till they say
someone’s there, someone’s breathing
to each other.
The thing about my mother
is this is one way to girl me. One way to fear-me-not.
Is some of our stuff in his garage.
Is this body’s orchard
saying teach me how to die
while I’m still living.
You can find some of Michelle’s most recent poetry in Spoon River Poetry Review, Jet Fuel Review, The Feminist Wire, Requited (March 2016), The Indiana Review (Summer 2016) and The Bennington Review (Fall/Winter 2016). She is also the author of a forthcoming chapbook, Who Will Be Frenchy? (dancing girl press, Fall 2016). She lives in Maine.
