"Weather and Words" by Susan Solomon
Maiden, ______ , Mother
The violence of being who
you are: the ground sleeps
dark beneath the snow. I am
a dreading woman. I am a girl
who behaves powerfully.
Babies, meat, abide. (In this
dream I accrue ten thousand
eyeballed eggs, preside high
over my legacy.
I am powerful because you
do not look away.) (She lifts up
her hair, shows a knifey gash
amid the crowded overlaid nits,
rich breach like a grin
aglow in the dark, dark, dark.
I do not pity their mother, I pity
the children.) Babies, meat, abide.
The violence of being who
you are: the ground sleeps
dark beneath the snow. I am
a dreading woman. I am a girl
who behaves powerfully.
Babies, meat, abide. (In this
dream I accrue ten thousand
eyeballed eggs, preside high
over my legacy.
I am powerful because you
do not look away.) (She lifts up
her hair, shows a knifey gash
amid the crowded overlaid nits,
rich breach like a grin
aglow in the dark, dark, dark.
I do not pity their mother, I pity
the children.) Babies, meat, abide.
Ginger Ko is the author of Motherlover from Coconut Books, and her chapbook Inherit is forthcoming from Bloof. She lives in Wyoming.
Susan Solomon is a freelance painter living in St. Paul, Minnesota. She also edits and cartoons Sleet Magazine, an online literary journal. Susan was recently laid off from her medical office job after 11 years and is now happily painting full time. She is a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the same school that claims David Lynch as an alumni. To view more paintings, please visit www.susansolomonpainter.com
"Weather and Words" first appeared in the collaboration chapbook Dessert Poems with poet Jamie Buehner (Binge Press 2012).
"Weather and Words" first appeared in the collaboration chapbook Dessert Poems with poet Jamie Buehner (Binge Press 2012).
