Poetry By Mary Alice Dixon

Sigfrid Lundberg CC




my brother said his name was fowl

when I was twelve I watched him
baptize himself with Wild Turkey, 
chanting, “I am the fowl, I am the sin
of the saved.” He shook his wet hair 
spelled out the word “fowl” and said
he saw snakes under his skin. 

I tried to save him by drawing swans 
in my notebook, swans with no claws
but my brother said such fowl could
not kill snakes. I could not save him. 

But he saved me. He showed me how 
to make claws with steel nails poked
through wool gloves. His ashes are
in the pond. I still have my claws.

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Mary Alice Dixon lives in Charlotte, NC and grew up in Carolina red dirt mixed with Appalachian coal dust. Her past jobs include popcorn waitress, encyclopedia seller, and advocate for abused children and their parents. Her writing is in Kakalak, Main Street Rag,  Northern Appalachian Review, Stonecoast Review, The Petigru Review, Pinesong, and elsewhere. In 2023 the NC Poetry Society named her a Poet Laureate Finalist. Mary Alice makes hospice calls and talks to the ghosts of her lost cats, Alice B. Toklas and Thomas Merton. She believes poetry is a form of healing.
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