The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: "That Sister" by Sarah E. Colona

how to say goodbye to your mother

if she’s handfuls of ashes
simply blow

but know
she’ll haunt each step you take toward grace

if she’s a mannequin
look for her seams

then dismantle
that matching pedestal

if she’s the earth
beneath your fingernails

accept
you’ll never be rid of her

This selection comes from the poetry chapbook That Sister by Sarah E. Colona, which is available to purchase here from Dancing Girl Press.

Sarah E. Colona lives and teaches in her home state of New Jersey. She is the author of three poetry collections: Hibernaculum (Gold Wake Press, 2013), Thimbles (dancing girl press, 2012) and That Sister, (dancing girl press, 2016). Sarah is a graduate of George Mason University’s MFA program. Recent poems appear in The New Verse News.

Jennie Frost is a Jewish, Appalachian poet from Maryville, TN. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Anomaly, Kudzu, Glass Mountain, Sink Hollow, Indicia, Mochila, Stirring, and Political Punch, an anthology on the politics of identity from Sundress Publications. She is a three-time winner of the Curtis Owens prize and beginning in January, she will serve as the Writer in Residence at the Sundress Academy for the Arts.