THE  27Th  EDITIOn

seven years after she left / took two suitcases / a tattered mickey mouse duffle bag / carried stolen puzzles of twenty years of a young union over her shoulder / and tucked away the rest of the lesson plans she laid out for us under red-rimmed eyes / i saw her again / on a blazing april day painted with pastels / i almost missed her / barely put her together without the weight she hefted in my spring / afraid to touch her / i placed a foreign hand on her glass-shard elbow / gentle / scared of getting nicked / wondered how she was standing there / not in a pile of spear-sharp bone and filleted flesh / who was once my mother disappeared / years stole recognition / memory / splayed her out and diced her apart / pound by pound / lost / after sleepless nights on her cousin's couch / empty dial tones / gouged out apartments / hollowed without the slap of her children’s feet along the hallways / cut her from the inside out / until she thinned / deformed / disappeared after years of barren matrimony / 

paper strength  

 

she smiled

 / like she finally found herself / 

/ picked up puzzles she thought she lost / 

/ solved an unlocked version of herself /

/ my mother / 

/ 

stained glass