Poetry By Claire Paschal

         michael mueller CC




If I Were To Recover

I’d learn to scale the champagne pyramid in stilettos, crack the wine stems
of my wrists and fall asleep on the familiar tightrope of Mom’s waist.

It’s not easy to beat the harvest, but you can
learn to speak without drinking. Crave
a pomegranate, spit the seeds.

Weld a perfect halo. Speak
without speaking. Mom knows
this. She teaches me to thread

a needle. Again. She’s hidden our rum. I am
a broken thread of lanterns between a cluster
of Sycamores. My hemline is a brook

and my vow is underwater. Mom
holds me  down until
I am eye level
silver minnows, an orchestra
of crickets: they know.
My petticoats are underwater

closets, I used to stock full
chardonnay, Bacardi, and grapefruit.
I keep wearing my craving like a feathered boa--

sit on a stone by the brook, whittling
away peels of fuchsia until the water runs clear. 

Mom says, I thought about a breathalyzer for the car.
But instead, we fashion a shawl from every ochre-stained
wine cork, we capture the halo from our campfire.


​

Claire Paschal is a poet and writer living in Dallas, TX. She earned her BFA from Emerson College ('14). She works for a children's hospital by day and tends to her tiny balcony garden at night.

---