Poetry by Isobel Burke

     Taber Andrew Bain CC




you finally showed me your bones.

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no one could see what i saw
when i looked at you:
a monster in fair skin, like a child
cradled in the arms
of her mother. i over-empathize. 
we are our mothers’ daughters,
after all. we are born selfish.
we learn hunger before love. 
we take our first breaths 
with our mothers’ blood on our hands.
i still believe you.
i believe you wanted to hurt me,
the right way, to save me
from the wrong pain. your pain.
my mother loved me wrong, too.
the only instinct we inherit 
is survival. we would kill our mothers
to survive. but it’s fine,
they would do the same: a family tree
growing in a mass grave of unborn daughters
and dead mothers.
i never saw my mother when i looked at you,
the same way i never saw her
when i looked in the mirror.
it is never the absence of love
that lingers longest:
i have wanted to hurt someone 
the right way, too. 

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Isobel Burke is a poet born and raised on Vancouver Island. In her work she explores themes of family, identity, religion, sexuality, love and trauma with both teeth and tenderness. Her collection of poetry, "inheritance.", placed first in the 20th annual Saints & Sinners Literary Festival poetry contest in 2023. Instagram: @poet.unmoored.