
This selection, chosen by guest curator Heather Leigh, is from Nerve Chorus by Willa Carroll, released by The Word Works in 2018.
Matriarchive
My mother is best kept sideways.
My mother fits inside a baby tooth.
My mother is mountain.
She levitates the Pentagon in 1967.
Wakes up the White House at 6am, chanting:
Hey, Hey, LBJ! How many babies have you burned today!
My mother makes masks out of clay, feathers, & twine,
swallows antique bone buttons,
rents an unfurnished dollhouse,
hides under a horsehair wig.
She’s a nude figure model, a hot dog stand manager,
a census worker, a gunslinger in pirouette, a single mater.
She buys our sneakers at Star Market Grocery,
hocks the piano, gives away the cat.
Her dead ex-boyfriend smelled like bourbon & pine.
My mother studies modern witchcraft to learn a few tricks,
grows rhubarb & lemon balm,
hides her gray with Nice ‘n Easy,
the shade called Brunette on Fire,
ignites a Merit Ultra Light,
can’t hear my knock on the smoke screen.
She quit years ago, the boomerang now blooms in her chest.
Her heart is molasses in a burlap sack.
Her lungs are used envelopes, torn & burned with the old letters.


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Love this one! A wild and moving portrait.