This monster under my bed is a mud woman,
dug from beneath the body keep,
creek water sauldered,
breakfast, lunch, and dinner breasts.

Belly, you’d think I’ve lived there
for how it pulls,
a thousand memories
I can’t quite capture
whisper vespers, suspect,
unsavory
Might savor me,
yet I am fixed,
and will not flee.

I would have no place, anyway,
if I did,
the 300-count sheet is thin,
over my head,
inadequate for shutting her out,
or is it them?
Gossip groups might issue
from one hoary mouth,
the collective can shun
or does it hold?

Oh, Mother,
you were inadequate in showing me the ways of women
as you warned me about men.

 

 

Amy Alexander is a poet, visual artist and homeschooling mother living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, not far from the Mississippi River, which is very far from her hometown on the Colorado River, but still familiar, because of moving water. Her work has appeared most recently in The Coil, Anti-Heroin Chic, the Mojave Heart Review, Mooky Chick, The Remembered Arts, and RKVRY. Follow her on Twitter @iriemom.