7/30/2022 Poetry by Sage RavenwoodThomas Wensing CC
Conversations With My Mother We have the same exact smile. Except, my upper lip has a slight curl. My come at me scowl. Fist earned from speaking out of turn. Her smile drips fake sincerity. Limpid disappointment in her eyes. I don’t think she knows how to speak; Without an influx of god backing every word, Bless the child mom, dip your prayers in holy water for the accursed. I used to think her beautiful. We can’t even look at each other. A love like ours smells like betrayal. Honeysuckle drowning in heavy musk. My addiction drip line with no rehab. I couldn’t get enough of her fix. ‘I’ll get it right this time’ life dosage. Take one bottle down, pass it around, there’s a kid out here who wants your love; she’s an offshoot of every mistake. My redemption. Her savior complex. The yearly birthday call, ’Are we saved yet?’ My doppelgänger choosing her daughter’s fate, lining up the stakes. There’s so much I want to tell you. I believed varicose veins were lightning; Thunder scars etched like tattoos on your legs. I’m sorry, isn’t an apology. My life wasn’t yours to bargain. Sacrilege is born in a mother’s image. I want to miss you. We talk all the time in the mirror. It’s etched with a lifetime of conversations we’ll never have. I don’t love you the way you love me. Sage Ravenwood is a deaf Cherokee woman residing in upstate NY with her two rescue dogs, Bjarki and Yazhi, and her one-eyed cat Max. She is an outspoken advocate against animal cruelty and domestic violence. Her work can be found in Glass Poetry - Poets Resist, The Temz Review, Contrary, trampset, Pittsburgh Poetry Journal, Pioneertown Literary, Grain, Sundress Press anthology - The Familiar Wild: On Dogs and Poetry, The Rumpus, Lit Quarterly, PØST, Massachusetts Review, Savant-Garde, ANMLY (Anomaly), River Mouth Review, Native Skin Lit, Santa Clara Review, The Normal School, Pinhole Poetry, UCity Review, Punk Noir, and more forthcoming. Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
August 2024
Categories |