Poetry By Rachael Gay

the psychiatrist tells my mother

The psychiatrist tells my mother she has not failed,
even though her children are broken.

For once she is credited as the bonesetter
despite our limbs shattered while in her direct line of sight.

Don’t they know that our genes arrived ragged,
full of holes that no amount of winter mending can patch up.

Our brains light up in entirely the wrong way.
Valleys of darkness where there should be a brightened skyline
shrinking away into withered nothingness,
effervescent reds bleed into languid blues.

My mother has never called herself an artist but
look at the vibrant mural she’s painted inside our rattling skulls.

Look at how she sculpted us from fragments retrieved from
in between stained sheets and drug down stairs
smashed to bits from the slightest exposure
to the uncaring outside.

We are fragments pulled together with scotch tape
lovingly puzzled together during commercial breaks.

My therapist once theorized that my mother is without any identity
other than her children’s sickness but look at how she creates
while holding onto a wrongly guilty conscience.

The psychiatrist tells my mother she is not responsible and
on the outside she smiles and nods but on the inside

she doubts

and she doubts

and she doubts

​

Bio: Rachael Gay is a poet and artist living in Fargo, North Dakota. Her work has appeared in Quail Bell, Rag Queens, Déraciné Magazine, Eunoia Review, Daily Gramma, Literary Orphans, FreezRay Poetry, Bitterzoet Magazine, The Bookends Review and others. More of her work can be found at witchinghourpoetry.tumblr.com.