Poetry

If I shake / the nails loose from my throat, / would it be enough / to build a bridge?

It did not appear hurt. Only hushed, still, / its wings tucked close in

But celery sticks sprout into swords, / wily fingers craft ziti into slippery pistols

How tall / will you grow before the insects / hear the hum of your sweet pith

What if we all held hands and ran far / from sports day and another HR restructure?

Not Alzheimer’s, just dementia unspecified, / said the neurologist

before he understood / one cannot be certain / where something is

No announcement of you / all those decades ago

So out of the sticks and bones and ash / of my untended memory / the tiny chicks / bud again

I birthed my mama / A wild thrashing muscular thing

My daughter’s chubby starfish hands / stretch for the dark-mirrored river