The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: "Motherlover" by Ginger Ko

authorphotoupdated

“Prayer for What’s Close”

Let me stay herein the West please God
Let me live on in shabby comfort
Let me find the tinned tomatoes aisle without wandering
Let me feel safe enough to have children someday

I’ll make every day worth and won’t be unpleasant
I’ll remember not to dissolve into a malcontent
I’ll breathe and other cleansing things
I’ll wake in the mornings and write affirmations

Such as If I bother eating vitamins then I should admit I’m
interested
Such as I’m lucky to have this guy and mustn’t grind him down
even if he lets me
Such as I can be cool and lucky when I choose
Such as (guy again because he’s important) His mouth parted
and flush

And with a pen’s ink that’s indelible my God
I promise I’m not changeable just look at what I’ve been
praying all these years
Gripping snowflakes with pinches
I’m ready for the sharpness of this because now I know that it’ll be sharp

This thing which is summer without mosquitoes and some sunshine
why not
This thing which is a lovely life
This thing which is unpacking
This thing which is picking a spot on the wall for a picture as if it
mattered dear God

This selection comes from Ginger Ko’s poetry collection Motherlover, available now from Bloof Books. Purchase your copy here.

Ginger Ko is the author of Motherlover (Bloof Books), and the chapbooks Inherit (Bloof Books) and Comorbid (Lark Books). Sidebrow will be publishing her second, currently unnamed full collection of poetry. Ginger is currently a PhD student at the University of Georgia’s creative writing program. You can find her online at www.gingerko.com.

Staci R. Schoenfeld is a recipient of 2015 NEA Fellowship for Poetry, grants from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund and the Kentucky Foundation for Women, and residencies from the Ragdale Foundation and Albee Foundation. She is a PhD student at University of South Dakota, assistant editor for poetry at South Dakota Review, and an assistant editor at Sundress Publications. Recent and forthcoming publications include poems in Mid-American Review, Southern Humanities Review, and Room Magazine, fiction in Gingerbread House Literary Magazine, and non-fiction in The Manifest Station.