dear mother. The stick of the needle
and the thin burn pushing in me.
The grinning panther warming shadows, lips
split over hard arching teeth.
The tip of your brother’s play thing like
gristle in my mouth on Sundays.
Ariel’s mother and Belle’s
mother and Cinderella’s
dead mother. The something to tell someone,
if it weren’t for your open fists.
You spread your fingers across my face
and dig.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 17, Issue 1.
Marq Wilson received her MFA in Creative Writing from Arizona State University in 2009. She received the Virginia G. Piper Writing Fellowship in 2008. Besides writing both poetry and fiction, Wilson also explores the complexity of identity in Modern American literature through scholarly research.
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