Poetry By Jonny Shae Ransbottom

Mike Fritcher CC




FOR SEATTLE, WHERE SHE MUST RUN 

I wonder where my sister is tonight
maybe under a cardboard box
or under a bridge
she always liked the troll from seattle
and the vintage dolls-
yes
she’s under a bridge. 

She posted on facebook today
some memory from five years ago
her hair is pink like the troll’s
but she's missing teeth and her cheeks
have started to sink
beneath her fragile bones
she's only thirty three-
And that was five years ago.

I hardly hear from her but
on my twentieth birthday 
she posted
that she loved me

A lot has happened since then
she said she got clean
went to LA and through recovery
tailed back to utah

I imagine her a hopper on trains
like London in the 1890’s
a Leon Ray Livingston bo-ette
but I know that's romanticized
she went to prison when she got home
“That’s how you stayed clean” mom’s
voice leaked 

over telephone lines

                              over the Utah-Idaho border

                                                                             over the family grapevine.





Jonny Shae Ransbottom is the author of several essays and poems, and has been published in Minerva Rising’s “The Keeping Room” and Club Plum. She enjoys writing all genres, and finds herself drawn to the raw and real stories of love and hardship, particularly those that speak to the feminine experience. As an educator, she believes in the passion of writing as a tool for connection and healing. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Lindenwood University in 2023 and continues to write diverse works of poetry, fiction, and lyrical nonfiction. @jonnyshae