Washing for Mother
Yes, Mother—
I wash your clothes,
crooked back over noisy machine.
I could be doing better
things if so much of you wasn’t
revolving in me.
I work late and in darkness,
but there’s endless dirt. You keep
rolling rocks out back—heavy torments
collecting themselves while
I labor at spit and polish, the perfect
daughter.
Today you have made more demands
than a lifetime of cleaning could
satisfy. Your head hurts cooking
up new ways to mess the house.
My knuckles are raw performers.
No one needs
to tell me how hard
callouses become from all this
scrubbing. I have washed every trace of
human fiber from your clothes.
Confession to My Son
I didn’t ask for this.
You saw, came, conquered.
A prickly bundle. My heart
punctured before the moon
rose full. The challenge of you
too much for saints. The angels
to this day still fluttering
in shock.
Why did you choose me? Why
me? I know nothing of the
insanely bright, and even less now
having born your heat. Your genius for
searing holes in me is taxing.
The night you arrived I had
stiff pains all through, an
earthquake of tremors, deep
shifting plates.
The doctors berated, dogged me to
induce labor weeks early,
expunge you. “He’s
big,” they huffed. “Get him
out before he fractures your
Pelvis.”
I didn’t listen.
My body survived.
Those frauds missed the
point, the peril of your mind
grating against mine. Our daily
friction.
I didn’t count on the extended
tension. The struggle to control your
nervous energy. Me patting you
down to preserve bits of
sanity against a fierce continuum
of rage.
On your way through,
you pulled a corner of me
inside out. I didn’t know your power yet.
You shine so.
More brilliant than any of my ancestors.
When you leave home I’ll thrill-seek out of habit.
Stand on a jagged precipice and leap
pursuing something dangerous and warm
I didn’t ask for but require now.
Keen for the gift of wind straining my hair.
Bio:
Lina Marino earned her BA in Creative Writing from Binghamton University, NY. Her work has appeared in The Comstock Review, Twyckenham Notes, Atlanta Review, The McNeese Review, As You Were, and Line of Advance. She is a recipient of a National League of American PEN Women Writing Award, First Place winner of the 2022 Darron Wright Poetry Award, and a nominee for a 2023 Pushcart Prize in fiction.
OVUNQUE SIAMO 